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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27496984">Travellers from an Antique Land</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaydeefalls/pseuds/kaydeefalls'>kaydeefalls</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Old Guard (Movie 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Action &amp; Romance, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Andy is the one in the iron maiden, Canon Queer Character, Canon Queer Relationship, Canon-Typical Violence, Ensemble Cast, F/F, Flashbacks, Healthy Relationships, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, POV Multiple, Plotty, Reunions, Team as Family, Temporary Character Death, as per canon, everyone gets to be badass</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 22:10:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>45,787</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27496984</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaydeefalls/pseuds/kaydeefalls</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p><em>"Wait, hold up a sec. So if you were around before them -- how old are </em>you<em>?"</em></p>
<p>
  <em>The men all go quiet, and Nile wonders if she's just committed some kind of immortal faux pas. "It is irrelevant," Quỳnh finally says. "Old enough to know there is no point looking backwards."</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>"You're the oldest," Nile murmurs in awe. Older than the Crusades. How much older? A few hundred years more? A thousand?</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>"No," Nicky says quietly. "Not the oldest."</em>
</p>
<p>Canon-divergent AU. Five hundred years ago, they lost Andromache to the sea. Now Quỳnh leads the team, a new immortal just woke up, and some pharmaceutical company is getting a little too interested in their business.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>235</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>656</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Good Readings (ymmv)</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Title and sporadic quotations borrowed from both Percy Shelley's and Horace Smith's "Ozymandias". Huge thanks to g33kyclassic, Lindstrom, Lulu, and Redheartglow for the excellent beta assistance, because man, sometimes it takes a village. </p>
<p>This fic is complete! Four chapters total that will be posted throughout this week.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>(now.)</strong>
</p>
<p>It's Booker who takes her aside, in her first evening with the full team. He finds her out on the back porch of their safehouse in the forests of Luxembourg, listening to the night wind rustle through the trees, and offers her his silver flask. Nile hesitates a moment, then accepts it and takes a swig. Something in his eyes warns her that she might need it.</p>
<p>"Joe told you the dreams stop when we meet," he says, like he's bracing himself.</p>
<p>Nile nods. When he doesn't say anything further for a long moment, she asks, "That not true?"</p>
<p>"No, it's true, all right," Booker says. "But he and Nicky probably won't think to warn you. So." He leans back against the railing. "You're going to have a nightmare. Maybe not tonight, maybe not for weeks, but eventually. It's gonna be visceral. You're gonna wake up screaming." He takes his flask back from her and drinks deeply. "A woman. Dark hair, eyes like ice. All terror and rage and hopelessness." When he meets her eyes, his are dark with pain. "And those dreams, they never stop. Because you and me, Nile, we're never gonna meet her."</p>
<p>His words strike a chord, like a half-remembered tune. "I think maybe...I dreamt of her already? Just flashes, same as the rest of you, when I…" <em>Died</em>, she still doesn't quite know how to say. These people are so casual about it. She can't imagine ever treating death so irreverently. She shakes it off, presses on forward. "So you're saying there's another one of us out there?"</p>
<p>"They lost her, long before I showed up." He shrugs. She's heard the expression <em>Gallic shrug</em> before, but never really understood until she met Booker. "If you want to know more, ask Nicky sometime. Maybe Joe. It hurts them to think about her, but they'll want to help you understand anyway." His mouth presses into a hard, thin line. "But not Quỳnh. Just...don't mention her to Quỳnh, okay?"</p>
<p>Nile hasn't been able to get a good read on Quỳnh yet. The other woman has been pleasant enough so far, though there's an edge to it. She's not <em>mean</em>, but just the slightest bit feral, like a stray cat who's definitely not your pet. She gives off strong don't-fuck-with-me vibes. "Okay," she agrees, a little hesitantly. "There a particular reason for that?"</p>
<p>It takes him a long time to respond, and when he does, it's not exactly what Nile would call an answer. "Rochester kept his mad wife in the attic," Booker murmurs, looking out at nothing in particular. "Quỳnh's is both farther away and far too close to hand. If there's one thing I've learned about immortality, it's to plug your ears to the ghosts. It doesn't help anyone to rattle those chains."</p>
<p>She's not sure how to respond to that, so after a few more minutes of watching the trees together, she heads back inside. Quỳnh has a laptop open on the table where they'd eaten dinner, and appears absorbed in it; a quick glance shows lines of code scrolling across the screen. Huh. Nile had gathered that Booker was the group's resident techie, but seems like Quỳnh's no slouch in that department herself. There's a soccer match playing on the muted TV, and Joe is sprawled across the couch, watching through heavy-lidded eyes. She can hear clattering in the kitchen, presumably Nicky cleaning up. The wind tugs the porch door shut with a bang behind her, and the others startle visibly for a moment -- Nicky poking his head out from the kitchen -- before relaxing again. </p>
<p>Is this really the life Nile wants? Moving through a series of safehouses, always on high alert, jumping at any sudden noises? In fairness, her reflexes are just as twitchy as a Marine, and these digs are definitely a step up from a military barracks, but she'd never intended to be a lifer. Once her tour of duty ended, she'd planned on returning to her family and maybe using the GI Bill to pay her way through art school. Now...she doesn't even know what kind of choice she gets in the matter.</p>
<p>Not that the military had given her any say in it when they'd basically kidnapped her from her own base, though. If it weren't for Joe and Nicky, who knows where she'd be right now?</p>
<p>Ugh. She's only had, like, a day to process all this shit. She needs a lot more of whatever was in Booker's flask, stat. </p>
<p>"Who's playing?" Booker asks, making a shooing motion until Joe tucks his legs in enough to make room for him at the other end of the couch.</p>
<p>"Eh." Joe waves a dismissive hand. "Luxembourg. I don't remember which." To Nile, he smiles and adds, "There's more wine in the kitchen, if you'd like. Or coffee."</p>
<p>Wine is not strong enough for the twists her life has taken in the past forty-eight hours. "Sure," she says. "More wine would be great. Anyone else?"</p>
<p>Nicky's already bringing out what's left of the bottle, and tops off Quỳnh in passing before handing Nile her glass. Quỳnh murmurs something appreciative without looking up from her screen. After a moment's hesitation, Nile lays claim to the lone armchair, cradling her glass to her chest, and watches Nicky take a seat on the rug in front of Joe, leaning back against the couch. Joe's arm immediately drapes down to rest across his shoulder, thumbing absently at the soft-looking fabric of Nicky's T-shirt. It had taken Nile longer than she cares to admit to realize they were a couple, but in fairness, she <em>had</em> been mid-abduction when they met. Still. A few hours alone in a car with them had clued her in pretty quick.</p>
<p>She realizes that Nicky is looking right back at her, eyebrows raised ever so slightly, and flushes at being caught staring. "So," she says, trying to dispel the awkwardness. "These two told me they met during the Crusades. Is that really true, or were they just having me on?"</p>
<p>"Oh, it's definitely true," Booker says with a chuckle. "That, or they've been remarkably good at sticking to the same story for the past two hundred years."</p>
<p>Joe kicks him affably in the side, and Booker swats at his feet. "I can confirm it," Quỳnh says drily from the table. "All my dreams for years were filled with swords and blood and sand. It was a relief when they finally started fucking, at least that was <em>interesting</em>."</p>
<p>"Don't remind me," Booker grumbles, while Joe cackles with laughter and Nicky just buries his face in his hands, the tips of his ears reddening. Joe shoots back at Quỳnh in some unfamiliar language -- not actually Mandarin, she's pretty sure, but that's the closest guess she can make -- that has Quỳnh grinning outright behind her laptop screen and Nicky groaning aloud.</p>
<p>"Wait, hold up a sec," Nile interrupts, eyes widening as realization slowly dawns. "So if you were around before them -- how old are <em>you</em>?"</p>
<p>Quỳnh's fingers still for a moment on the keys. The men all go quiet, and Nile wonders if she's just committed some kind of immortal faux pas.</p>
<p>"A lady never reveals her age, eh?" Booker finally remarks, with a sidelong glance over at Quỳnh that's equal parts rueful and affectionate.</p>
<p>Quỳnh shakes her head decisively. The tapping resumes on the keyboard. "It is irrelevant," she says, keeping her eyes fixed on the screen. "Old enough to know there is no point looking backwards."</p>
<p>"You're the oldest," Nile murmurs in awe. Older than the Crusades. How much older? A few hundred years more? A thousand?</p>
<p>Quỳnh doesn't respond, but her shoulders hunch forward a little as she types.</p>
<p>"No," Nicky says quietly. "Not the oldest."</p>
<p>Nile looks to Booker, who gives her the faintest of nods. <em>They lost her, long before I showed up.</em> He'd tried to warn her, and she'd still stepped right in it, anyway. Good job, Freeman. Real smooth.</p>
<p>He was right about the nightmares, too. The first time Nile dreams of the other woman, she's drowning, and screaming, and drowning again, completely mad, and Nile wakes up with that scream lodged in her own throat. She's drenched in sweat. The salt of it smells like seawater.</p><hr/>
<p>
  <strong>(earlier.)</strong>
</p>
<p>Joe and Nicky are in Buenos Aires when the new dream comes. They've rented an apartment on a tree-lined street, just a couple of blocks from an outdoor market, and their bedroom windows face east. Nicky grumbles about it, but Joe loves the way the sunrise slants across their bed, painting Nicky in honey and gold, and frequently "forgets" to draw the curtains closed before they go to sleep.</p>
<p>So when Joe wakes up with a shudder in the small hours of the morning, wheezing and choking on nothing, there's enough light from the streetlamps that he can clearly see the same terror reflected in Nicky's eyes, in the way he presses his hand to his mouth and then stares down at it as though he might see his own blood spilling out.</p>
<p>"Ah, no," Nicky murmurs, shaking his head. "That poor child."</p>
<p>Joe is already scrambling for a notepad, trying to cling to the flashes of images before the dream fades. With Nicky's help, he sketches her as best they can remember.</p>
<p>"A soldier, I think," Nicky says, chin tucked onto Joe's bare shoulder, watching as the picture comes to life on the pad. "I saw dog tags. American, maybe?"</p>
<p>"We're always soldiers," Joe mutters. "But yes. Part of a name tag -- Free? Free something."</p>
<p>Nicky hums agreement. "It's a start."</p>
<p>"There was an older woman in a hijab -- where are the Americans invading these days, Afghanistan still?"</p>
<p>"The knife was a pesh kabz, pashtun. So probably." Nicky presses an absent kiss to Joe's shoulderblade as he pulls away, scrubbing at his eyes. "Hopefully the others will have seen more detail, something we missed."</p>
<p>Joe frowns to himself, considering it. "They haven't contacted us, though. Maybe it just happened. We should call Quỳnh." He squints out the window at the blue-gray predawn sky. "Where is she now, do you remember? The time difference--"</p>
<p>Nicky shrugs. "Ahead of us, anyway. Booker too, he's in Paris, it should be late morning there. If it did just happen, you're right, they probably haven't dreamt her yet. I'll call Quỳnh, you take Book?"</p>
<p>"She'll be mad at you for interrupting her vacation," Joe warns him.</p>
<p>"Ah, well," Nicky says, a faint half-smile twitching at the corners of his lips. "It'll hardly be the first bullet I've taken for you."</p>
<p>Quỳnh is in Mongolia, as it turns out, which does not sound like much of a vacation to Joe. But then, Quỳnh's concept of down time has always been...unique.</p>
<p>"She'll handle the retrieval," Nicky confirms when the call ends. "Seeing as she's at least on the right continent already. She says to give Booker all the info we have, he might be able to track the new one down with more precision than, ah, 'somewhere in Afghanistan maybe.' Especially if her fellow soldiers saw her resurrect."</p>
<p>Joe sighs, watching the sky slowly lighten with false dawn. "I guess that's the end of our vacation, too."</p>
<p>"She needs us, Joe," Nicky says gently. He sits back down on the edge of the bed beside him, his hand coming to rest on Joe's knee. "You remember what it was like, to feel so alone."</p>
<p>"I know." Joe leans into his touch. Now that the initial adrenaline rush of the dream has passed, he feels heavy with unfinished sleep, stretched thin. "It's just unexpected. Another one, so soon? It's barely been two centuries since Booker."</p>
<p>"It all moves faster and faster," Nicky murmurs. "It was well over a thousand years with no one new before we first died together, and then seven hundred to Booker, now two hundred… Perhaps the world needs us more now than it did before."</p>
<p>"Perhaps." Joe closes his eyes, turning to press his face into the crook of Nicky's neck. Just for another minute, he tells himself. Then he'll call Booker, and figure out how they're getting to France. "How long is it to Paris, a fifteen hour flight?" he mumbles into Nicky's warm skin.</p>
<p>Nicky hums again, and Joe can feel the soft vibration against his lips. "A little less. You can sleep on the plane."</p>
<p>Joe snorts. "We'll just dream some more, probably. Not terribly restful."</p>
<p>"But useful," Nicky points out. "If it helps us find her more quickly." He kisses Joe's forehead, and Joe sighs and forces himself upright.</p>
<p>They greet the sunrise of the following day from Charles de Gaulle airport, wired on too much terrible airplane coffee and so jet-lagged that their bodies can't effectively tell up from down. Nicky passes out across Joe's lap in the taxi, and Joe threads his fingers through Nicky's soft hair as he watches daylight slowly creep across the tiled roofs of the city. He enjoys modern transportation for the most part -- loved railroads despite the noise and smoke, thrilled as cars grew sleeker and faster, deeply appreciates that he can cross the ocean in a matter of hours rather than weeks or months at sea. But the relentless pace of modern life is exhausting in its own way. Joe sometimes feels as though they barely have the time or space to breathe, let alone think clearly.</p>
<p>When they get to Booker's place, Joe jostles Nicky gently to wake him, and is rewarded with a few lovely moments of sleepy-and-confused Nicky -- brow furrowed, those big eyes narrowed to unhappy slits, cheeks faintly flushed -- before he snaps into full alertness. Joe mourns that loss a little, too. It can take weeks after a mission for Nicky to unwind enough to relax into a deep sleep. He won't loosen up like this again until they've successfully retrieved the newest member of their family and are all secured away into one of their most remote safehouses.</p>
<p>Booker hasn't slept much either. He greets them both with distracted one-arm hugs and very black coffee and then settles right back down into his haphazard work station, which consists of three different computers of varying sizes arrayed across a 19th century desk. Joe knows his way around a laptop: on Quỳnh's urging, they'd all enrolled in computer science programs in the early '90s, but she and Booker took to it best, so he and Nicky prefer to leave them to it.</p>
<p>"Any news?" Nicky asks, taking a sip of his coffee with a grimace. Joe is already scrounging for sugar in Booker's disaster of a kitchenette. No amount of exhaustion will make him swallow this tar as it is.</p>
<p>Booker shrugs. "Narrowed it down to the most likely military base in Afghanistan. I managed a quick nap yesterday afternoon, had the same shitty dream you guys did, not much new to add. Pretty sure the uniform was U.S. Marines. Quỳnh agrees."</p>
<p>"You'll need to cover her tracks," Joe remarks. "Once Quỳnh finds her, she'll be considered AWOL. Last thing we need is the Americans sniffing around in search of a wayward soldier."</p>
<p>"Yeah, tell me something I don't know. Can't do much until we have a name." Booker leans back in his chair, so far that Joe half expects him to accidentally tip it over backwards. "It'll be a few more hours at least before Quỳnh checks in, you guys should get some rest. There's a spare room--"</p>
<p>"--in the back, yeah, I remember," Joe says tiredly. He glances to Nicky. The best way to adjust their bodies to local time is to power through the jet lag. But once Quỳnh has news, they'll likely need to get moving fast. Better to snatch sleep while they can.</p>
<p>"You go," Nicky says quietly. He turns to include Booker in this. "Both of you. I slept on the flight, I'm good for now. I'll fetch you when Quỳnh calls."</p>
<p>Booker agrees with poorly-concealed relief, and staggers off toward his own bedroom. Joe briefly considers the spare room before just collapsing onto the couch instead. He's more likely to sleep knowing that Nicky's at least in the same room, and Nicky will appreciate keeping him in his line of sight. He drifts off to the quiet sounds of Nicky puttering around the tiny kitchen -- probably cleaning up some of the mess, he thinks fondly, and sleeps.</p>
<p>Some indeterminate amount of time later, he's awakened by Nicky's hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently, then petting his hair as Joe blinks blearily up at him. "Putting you on speaker," Nicky says into his phone, and does so while Joe drags himself up to a sitting position. Booker is slumped into an armchair. Despite the slouch in his shoulders, his eyes are sharp and alert. To both of them, Nicky says, "Quỳnh got there a little too late."</p>
<p>"I <em>just</em> missed her." Quỳnh's tone is clipped, her frustration evident even over speakerphone. "Military transport flight. I heard chatter about Landstuhl."</p>
<p>Booker's already heaving himself out of the armchair in the direction of his computers. "On it."</p>
<p>"Germany," Joe mutters. "Doesn't the US Army have some kind of medical center there?"</p>
<p>"If they saw her resurrect...medical tests." Nicky's eyes meet his, and Joe can see his own vague, formless terror reflected there. Capture is the greatest fear for all of them. Especially after losing Andromache. "Experimentation, maybe."</p>
<p>Joe grimaces and leans toward the phone in Nicky's hand to speak. "Don't take this the wrong way, boss, but it would've been a lot easier if she hadn't gotten on that flight."</p>
<p>"I'm not saying I could not take out an aircraft from the ground by myself," Quỳnh retorts. "But it would have drawn attention I prefer to avoid. Sorry, boys, but looks like you're going to Germany. Book can stay put and coordinate."</p>
<p>"Bagram notified Ramstein Air Base about incoming priority medical flight, ETA just under seven hours from now," Booker calls from his desk. "Christ, it'll take more than half that long to drive there--"</p>
<p>"Not if Nicky's driving," Joe points out with a grin, and Nicky's lips twitch in agreement. "Got a car for us, Sebastien?"</p>
<p>Booker sighs. "Don't I always? I like this one, Nicolas, so try not to destroy it, hmmm?"</p>
<p>"I make no promises," Nicky says breezily.</p>
<p>"Please remember that we're trying to stay under the radar," Quỳnh says.</p>
<p>Joe snorts. "We're gonna be abducting a Marine from a military air base in broad daylight, how exactly are we supposed to be inconspicuous about this?"</p>
<p>"Well, you've got about seven hours to figure it out. I'm getting the hell out of this desert, I'll check in once I catch my own ride. Juliett safehouse." Quỳnh ends the call abruptly, as per her usual, and Joe sighs. Seven hours is not really enough time to plan out an operation like this, especially when they'll be on the road for much of it, but they'll manage. They always do.</p>
<p>Joe winds up doing the driving, and after a quick detour to the Goussainville church to pick up some tactical gear, it's an uneventful journey. Quiet, too. Joe mulls over the issue of extraction as he drives, and he knows Nicky is doing the same, eyes closed as he leans his head against the window. Once they get to Landstuhl, they drive around seemingly aimlessly to get the lay of the land, which confirms Booker's intel. Finally, Joe veers onto a side road that soon devolves into a dirt track through a densely wooded area.</p>
<p>"Not ideal," he murmurs, pulling over and killing the engine. "Maybe after dark, it would work for an ambush, but it'll barely even be sundown when they land."</p>
<p>Nicky grimaces, clearly not liking it any better than Joe. "We'll make it work. We just need to move fast. Exit strategy?"</p>
<p>"Well, we've got some time to kill, let's see which of these side roads--"</p>
<p>Nicky's burner phone vibrates in his pocket, and he holds up a finger while he fishes it out. "Booker?"</p>
<p>Joe can't make out what Booker's saying, but he watches as Nicky's brows draw together in consternation. "<em>Va bene</em>," he finally says. "Thanks for the update. I'll let you know."</p>
<p>Joe raises an eyebrow.</p>
<p>"Slight change of plan." Nicky flips the shitty phone shut, his mouth flattening into a grim line. "Booker hacked into some secure military communications. The plane is still due to land at Ramstein, but it doesn't sound like our Marine is going to the medical center after all. They're passing her along to a private contractor."</p>
<p>"That sounds ominous. So we improvise?"</p>
<p>Nicky nods, staring out the windshield at nothing in particular. "Maybe it's my turn to drive."</p>
<p>"Hmm." Joe considers it. If they're going to need to follow some unknown vehicle… "Better if we could acquire a second car. Or motorbike."</p>
<p>Nice thing about a military base, nearby businesses always cater to young idiot soldiers, which means a secondhand motorcycle is easy to come by. Joe has a fondness for motorbikes -- something he and Booker have in common. They're fast and maneuverable, and much easier to ditch in a pinch. So when the flight with their new immortal lands at the air base, Joe and his motorbike wait along an access road just off the Autobahn, while Nicky patiently watches the runway from a concealed position in the woods ringing the airstrip. The car is parked just outside the base perimeter.</p>
<p>"I see her, she's off the plane." Nicky's voice is tinny over their closed-circuit comms. Booker is also on this frequency. Joe would prefer him in the field with them for the pickup, but he can't deny that it's nice to have tech support. "They have her in restraints, both wrists and ankles."</p>
<p>"That will complicate matters," Joe murmurs. "Worry about it later, though. Who's picking her up?"</p>
<p>Quiet for a few long moments. "Ah, I should have guessed it was that one. Armored van, black, not exactly inconspicuous. Guards -- I count four going into the back with her, plus the driver."</p>
<p>"Uniforms?" Booker asks. "I still can't get a lead on who this private contractor is."</p>
<p>"Tactical gear. Helmets, vests, the whole nine yards. All black, no insignia that I can make out."</p>
<p>Joe grimaces. "Very helpful. Heading?"</p>
<p>"They're having a chat with her Marine escort. Hold on." Another minute or so passes, then: "Northwest exit."</p>
<p>"A62, probably," Booker chimes in.</p>
<p>"All right," Joe agrees. "I'm on it."</p>
<p>"I'll join you when I can." Nicky sounds a little breathless now; he's probably hoofing it for the car. "Keep us updated."</p>
<p>Joe grins, knowing he can't see it, knowing he'll hear it in his voice anyway. "Drive safe, beloved."</p>
<p>"Where's the fun in that?"</p>
<p>"If you break my car, Nicky, I will break your face," Booker promises.</p>
<p>There is an art to following a vehicle without being obvious about it. Booker is actually the best at it, for some damn reason, but Joe does all right. It's easier on busy roads, in cities -- that complicates the driving part, but easier to remain inconspicuous. The Autobahn through this part of Germany is less populated than Joe would currently prefer, but on the plus side, it's early enough in the evening that he can still blend in with rush hour traffic, remaining several cars back, concealing himself behind trucks when he can. It helps that the van he's following sticks out like a sore thumb once they get far enough out from the military base. He checks in with both Nicky and Booker every ten minutes or so. By the time the van veers off the Autobahn somewhere near Friesen, Nicky has caught up to them -- Joe doesn't want to know how many traffic laws he broke to manage that -- and takes over the tail, narrating the van's progress.</p>
<p>"There's a private airstrip about twenty kilometers along that route, and absolutely fuck-all else, unless they're taking her to someone's backwoods cabin," Booker informs them, a few minutes later. "Isolated. Better than Landstuhl, we might have actually lucked out here. Joe, you can circle around and cut them off if you take the next exit, I'll guide you through it."</p>
<p>The retrieval itself goes more smoothly than Joe would have imagined, given how flimsy their plan was going in. It helps that dusk has fully fallen by now, providing an extra layer of concealment. He doesn't particularly like the idea of using one of Booker's IEDs on a civilian road, but this area really is quite isolated, surrounded by thick forests, and they don't have anything else that might stop an armored van in its tracks. And they need to make the extraction before the van reaches the airstrip.</p>
<p>The IED definitely stops the van. Flips it, actually. Joe ditches the motorbike in the trees and moves in just as Nicky -- driving far too quickly without headlights on this narrow, winding road in the dark -- screeches to a halt and dives out practically before the car has come to a full stop. When the door at the back of the van slams open, Joe already has a grenade in hand. <em>Sorry, new girl,</em> he thinks ruefully as he lobs it inside.</p>
<p>She'll survive, of course, but grenades are no fun to come back from. Hopefully the guards will catch it with their own bodies and spare her the worst of it.</p>
<p>It quickly becomes apparent that for all their equipment and firepower, these people had not been anticipating any kind of attack, and Joe and Nicky finish the guards off easily. Was it all just to intimidate one young Marine? As though the poor girl didn't have enough to be frightened about already. Joe vividly recalls his own first death and awakening, the relief and disbelief at his own survival mingled with abject terror at what it all might mean. Nicky was right: he very much did remember how alone he had felt then. And he and Nicky were the lucky ones; they'd entered their immortal lives together. They'd never truly been alone, though it took some time for them to figure that out.</p>
<p>Joe is the one to pull their new sister out of the wreckage. They hadn't managed to avoid hurting her in the assault, unfortunately; she gasps and shudders awake again in his arms, a single stray bullet pushing its way out of her forehead and clinking to the ground. She struggles instinctively against his hold.</p>
<p>"Shh, <em>habibti</em>, it's all right, you're all right," he murmurs, quickly setting her down on the grass by the side of the road and taking a step back. He holds his hands up where she can see them, empty. "My name is Joe. I'm so sorry you were hurt, but I swear to you, no further harm will come to you from my hand. We're here to help you."</p>
<p>"Who the fuck are you?" she demands. Her wrists and ankles are still bound. "What do you want with me?"</p>
<p>Nicky joins them then. "It's clear for now," he says to Joe, then kneels down by the girl's side. "Hello. I'm Nicky. Would you permit me to take those cuffs off of you?"</p>
<p>Her whole body is shaking, eyes wide in the deepening darkness. "What the hell is going on?"</p>
<p>"Your military sold you out when they discovered you can't die," Joe says bluntly. "We don't know to whom, or what they were planning to do to you, but given the escort, I don't imagine it would have been pleasant."</p>
<p>"We're like you," Nicky adds, still crouching beside her. He hasn't made a move to touch her or the restraints, still waiting for her permission. "We're immortal."</p>
<p>"This can't be real." She shakes her head, drawing into herself, rocking back and forth slightly. "No way, no freaking way--"</p>
<p>"I expect you have many questions," Nicky says. "And we will answer them as best we can. But we need to get moving before whoever those men work for comes looking for them. May I remove those restraints? It will be much more comfortable for you, I think."</p>
<p>She stares at him for a long moment, then Joe, then back over at the flipped van. "Okay. Fine. Please."</p>
<p>Nicky pulls out a knife and cuts through the thick zip ties, then offers her a hand. She takes it warily, letting him help her to her feet.</p>
<p>"I dreamed of you," she says abruptly. "When I -- in the hospital. Both of you. But there were others, too."</p>
<p>"Our team, yes," Joe tells her. "Our family. There are four of us -- now five, with you. We dream of each other until we meet." He offers her a smile. "What's your name?"</p>
<p>She hesitates, then looks back again at the van. She squares her shoulders. "Nile," she says.</p>
<p>"Nile," Joe repeats. He shares a glance with Nicky, sees a flicker of his own smile reflected there. "Welcome, Nile. We're glad to meet you."</p><hr/>
<p>
  <strong>(now.)</strong>
</p>
<p>It's nearly noon when Booker stumbles downstairs, his hair still wet from the shower. "Morning, boss," he says when he finds Quỳnh perched on a stool at the kitchen counter with her laptop, a mug of coffee steaming at her elbow.</p>
<p>Quỳnh glances at the clock on her screen. "Barely." She considers giving him shit for it, but he'd taken watch last night, only heading to bed when Nicky came out to replace him a little before dawn. So she supposes it's only fair. She nods at her coffee. "I just brewed a fresh pot."</p>
<p>"<em>Merci mille fois.</em>" He joins her there once he's poured his own cup and taken a few bracing gulps. "Where's everyone?"</p>
<p>"Outside somewhere. Joe and Nicky decided to give Nile a crash course on Sword Fighting 101." The boys seem to have taken a proprietary interest in the newest member of their family. Likely because they'd been the ones to retrieve her.</p>
<p>Booker quirks an eyebrow. "Sounds like fun. You didn't want in on that?"</p>
<p>"I'm an advanced level course," she says drily. "She needs to work her way up to me."</p>
<p>He chuckles a little at that. "What does that make me?"</p>
<p>"Remedial at best. You've never really fought with a blade."</p>
<p>"I <em>can</em>, though," he protests. "Just because I was born after the invention of gunpowder--"</p>
<p>"Guns need to be reloaded. Swords never run out of ammunition."</p>
<p>"Says the archer."</p>
<p>"Which is why I've always carried a blade as well," she finishes smugly. "You're a brawler at heart, Sebastien; you can teach Nile how to hit people with broken bottles."</p>
<p>Booker's lips twitch into a reluctant smile. "I'll drink to that." He pulls out his flask to doctor his coffee, then clinks his mug against hers. After he takes another gulp, he nudges her shoulder until she shifts the laptop between them. "Find anything new since last night?"</p>
<p>"A name, possibly, for our mysterious private contractor. But not the faintest idea what to <em>do</em> with that information." They'd expected the Marines would be suspicious of Nile's apparent resurrection. But a third party getting involved, and so quickly...this worries them all. Quỳnh prefers to avoid dwelling on the past, but she has certainly learned some hard lessons from it. It's never a good sign when anyone with power and resources catches whiff of their immortality.</p>
<p>"It's a place to start, though," Booker points out. "Who was it?"</p>
<p>Quỳnh taps on the trackpad to bring up the relevant window. "Merrick Pharmaceuticals. Based out of London, but they do have contracts with the US military as well."</p>
<p>"Merrick? Why do I -- oh." Booker stills, eyes narrowing. "I've heard of them."</p>
<p>Quỳnh tilts her head to one side as she considers him. He's always been a clever man, though he tends to downplay it; she knows what it looks like when his mind latches onto a puzzle, when he starts to piece it together. "Big Pharma," she remarks lightly. "Not difficult to imagine why they'd take an interest in our...longevity. "</p>
<p>After a few long moments, Booker pushes his stool back and gets to his feet. "I've got a contact who might be able to get us more information. Probably not for free, but let me give him a try, yeah?"</p>
<p>"Tread carefully, Book." Quỳnh allows the barest hint of rebuke to creep into her tone. "Be mindful of what information you end up giving <em>him</em>, hmm? I don't need Merrick noticing someone sniffing around right after they've just had a test subject stolen out from under them." She folds her hands in front of her and studies them with a frown. "We'll need to keep our heads down for a while, I think, once this matter is resolved. Deep cover."</p>
<p>"Yeah, well, let's see what we can do to resolve it, first." Booker looks down at her, something complicated flickering across his face, frustration and respect and the faintly haunted expression that always lingers in the shadows of his eyes. "Trust me to handle this, yeah? I know better than to stick my neck out." He smiles wryly. "I'm not even the baby of the family anymore, am I?"</p>
<p>Quỳnh rolls her eyes. "Whatever you say, little brother."</p>
<p>He snorts and ruffles her hair, and she smiles into her mug like that's the end of it. But she turns to watch him go, and even after he's left the kitchen, she gazes distantly out the open doorway. Something about Booker has always left her feeling wrong-footed, somehow. She's never quite sure she got it right with him.</p>
<p>"Oh, my love," she murmurs, in a language none of her brothers speak, "you would have done so much better."</p>
<p>She's still sitting motionless when the porch door bangs open and the others tumble back inside, laughing and reeking of sweat. Quỳnh does her best to shake off her mood as she joins them in the main room. It's always tricky for her to readjust to the company of others after she's taken time away on her own, even her own family. Hard for her to feel <em>present</em>, sometimes. But she does love them, so she tries.</p>
<p>"How was it?" she asks Nile, who has flopped onto the couch, boots up on the arm of it, breathing heavily.</p>
<p>"I think I almost lost a finger at one point," Nile says, shaking her head, but she doesn't look unhappy about it. "It's a really good thing we heal fast."</p>
<p>"My fault," Joe adds cheerfully. "She was quicker than I expected, my aim was off."</p>
<p>"So you would have hurt me <em>less</em> if I was slower?"</p>
<p>"I was trying to compensate!"</p>
<p>"She has promise," Nicky tells Quỳnh with his usual barely-there smile. "And she still has all her fingers, I counted."</p>
<p>Quỳnh returns his smile with genuine fondness. After a moment's hesitation, she perches at the end of the couch, by Nile's feet, and pats her approvingly on the leg. "Maybe tomorrow it's my turn, hmm?"</p>
<p>Nile blinks up at her, eyes wide and surprised, then gives her a tentative grin. "Yeah, sure, I'd like that."</p>
<p>She <em>will</em> do better, Quỳnh promises herself. This time, she'll get it right.</p><hr/>
<p>
  <strong>(1898.)</strong>
</p>
<p>Sometimes they are simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, as Quỳnh might say with a sigh. Nicky privately disagrees. What is their purpose, if not to be in a position to help those who need it most?</p>
<p>So they wash up on Crete at the tail end of the 19th century, in what will prove to be the final violent flailings of Ottoman rule over the island. They're in Candia in late summer when a riot sweeps through the city, pro-Ottoman insurgents attacking the British security forces and then going on to massacre hundreds of the city's inhabitants. Nicky dies four or five times while they attempt to evacuate as many civilians as they can; he loses track of Quỳnh and Booker for hours, and it's only Joe's grim determination that keeps the two of them from being separated as well. They joked about it, before, how frequently Joe was mistaken for a Turk here. Now it serves to their advantage, when the attackers simply assume he must be one of their own and never think to challenge him in the streets.</p>
<p>The riot only ends when British warships begin bombarding the city. Quỳnh is deeply aggrieved to have England to thank for anything: the woman can hold a grudge like nobody's business, and in fairness, it feels like they've spent much of the past century or so fighting <em>against</em> the British Empire on behalf of her various colonies. But right now, the so-called Great Powers are intervening on behalf of the local Cretans; the enemy of my enemy, Nicky supposes.</p>
<p>Hundreds are killed that day; their ragged band of refugees barely numbers in the dozens. Still, Nicky thinks, it's something. It will have to be enough.</p>
<p>Most of the evacuees have family on other parts of the island, and only need a little help reaching them. One boy, however, remains alone. He tells them his name is Dimitrios; his parents were from mainland Greece and had only settled on Crete a few years ago. "Bad timing," Booker remarks, with a rueful smile, and Dimitrios gives him a tiny smile of his own.</p>
<p>When Booker suggests they help return the boy to his extended family, Quỳnh is quick enough to agree. They'll all be happy to put the Ottomans behind them for a while, and it's so rare that Booker is the one to propose a mission. It feels like he's finally settling in with them.</p>
<p>Dimitrios is a quiet child, eyes prematurely aged in his ten-year-old face with the horrors he witnessed in Candia. He seems to have taken a shine to Booker, following him like a skinny shadow for the next few weeks. It takes time for them to barter for passage on a boat bound for Greece (unsurprisingly, trade has fallen off with all the warships in the harbor), time to cross the Mediterranean, time to make their way overland to the city of Patras, where Dimitrios has family, uncles and aunts and cousins who should be willing to take him in. And all the while, Dimitrios sticks to Booker like a burr.</p>
<p>It always takes Nicky by surprise, how good Booker is with children. Perhaps because Nicky sees it so rarely, so each time it startles him anew. Perhaps because Booker is so gruff and melancholy most of the time, prone to heavy drinking. Restlessness seems to thrum under his skin, making him impatient and sometimes short-tempered. He's never cruel, though, and he and Joe get on quite well most of the time, so Nicky simply accepts his little brother's foibles as he does his own, or Quỳnh's.</p>
<p>But with children, Booker is more patient, more open. He's not kinder, exactly, but he speaks to them as equals -- as people worthy of his attention and respect. "They haven't been fucked by life yet," he remarks once, shrugging, when Nicky comments on it. "Even the ones that have, there's a resilience to them. Every day is truly new. I admire that."</p>
<p>So maybe Nicky should have seen it coming.</p>
<p>They arrive in Patras late in the evening, and secure lodging in a comfortable inn for the night. Once Dimitrios is asleep up in their room and the others have staked out a table in the corner of the taverna downstairs, Nicky convinces Joe to go out for a nighttime walk with him. Not that it takes much convincing. They've all been travelling in close quarters for months now; they have to steal these little moments for themselves when they can.</p>
<p>An hour later, pleasantly rumpled from their, ah, stroll about the city, they return to the taverna just in time to witness the final sallies of a blazing row between Quỳnh and Booker.</p>
<p>"You must learn to accept that it is impossible!" Quỳnh is saying. Her voice holds a particular note of exasperation she seems to reserve exclusively for Booker these days. He doesn't always deserve it, but those two just rub each other the wrong way sometimes. (She's also been holding him personally responsible for the French occupation of Indochine for the past thirty years, to Joe's eternal amusement.) "I am only trying to spare you the inevitable grief!"</p>
<p>"And what would you know of grief?" Booker demands, voice raw and anguished. "What would you know of love, of affection? You've lived too long, Quỳnh; you've forgotten what it is to feel anything at all. Is there any part of you that's even human anymore?" He seems to regret the words as soon as they tumble from his mouth, wincing and ducking his head, but there's no unsaying them now.</p>
<p>Quỳnh, master of more weapons than Nicky can name, who knows more ways to kill a man than he can imagine in his most violent nightmares, simply gives Booker a look that would flay any mortal man alive.</p>
<p>"Get out of my sight," she hisses. "I mean it, Sebastien."</p>
<p>Booker flushes red, but he turns and walks out without another word. He shoulders right past Joe and Nicky as he goes, giving no indication he's even aware of their presence, and bangs his way outside.</p>
<p>Silence fills the gaps in his wake. The sparse handful of other patrons are doing their best to pretend they haven't noticed anything amiss, but Nicky would bet that gossip about the bickering foreigners will make its way all around town by daybreak. Joe curls his hand around Nicky's elbow. "I'll go after him," he murmurs, leaning in to brush the words against Nicky's ear. "See to Quỳnh?"</p>
<p>Nicky nods. Joe presses a fleeting kiss to his neck as he pulls away, subtle enough that no one should notice, then slips unobtrusively out onto the street.</p>
<p>After a moment's consideration, Nicky orders a bottle of wine and then brings it to Quỳnh in the corner table, pouring them both a glass without speaking. She doesn't even seem to see it for a few long minutes. But eventually she takes it and drinks, mechanically.</p>
<p>Nicky refills her glass when she finishes it, only sipping at his own, and waits her out.</p>
<p>"The child has grown too attached," she finally says. Her tone is dispassionate. Nicky knows her too well for that, though; she always retreats to coldness when she's hurting, hating to let it show. "He asked Booker if he could remain with us instead of going to his relatives. He wants to see the world."</p>
<p>"And so Booker asked you," Nicky sighs. "Ah, Sebastien, you old fool."</p>
<p>Quỳnh looks up to meet his eyes. Her own are red-rimmed, though no tears fall. "Ours is no life for a child. And he has family who will be glad to have him. Who will love him."</p>
<p>"Dimitrios is a sweet boy," Nicky agrees softly. "How could they not?"</p>
<p>"It would break Booker's heart," she says. "To raise him only to lose him anyway. This will still hurt him, of course, but not like that would."</p>
<p>Nicky reaches out to clasp Quỳnh's hand in his own, squeezing it tightly. "I know."</p>
<p>"Did I do wrong, Nicolò?" she demands, sounding strangely young and uncertain. "When I prevented him from returning to his family, when first we found him? When I convinced him it was better to be dead to them in truth? Have I broken him too terribly?"</p>
<p>Though his heart cries out to comfort her, to reassure her, he knows that Quỳnh has never wanted pretty lies. All Nicky can offer her is the truth. "There is no answer to that, love," he says gently. "You understand better than anyone how people can turn against us, when they learn what we have become. Even those who once claimed to love us. You wanted to protect him then, to spare him the pain of losing them all over again. And he allowed it. He could have rejected you, could have gone back to them anyway -- we would not have stopped him, if it was what he truly wanted. But he didn't. There is no right or wrong in this. It is what it is. You cannot go back and change it now."</p>
<p>"I think he would, if he could," Quỳnh whispers. "He carries so many regrets, Nico."</p>
<p>Nicky sighs, gently tracing her knuckles. "I think perhaps that's just who he <em>is</em>, Quỳnh."</p>
<p>She lets out a wet laugh, something not quite a sob. "You and Yusuf were so easy. You just fell in with us so naturally, so happy to have found us, so eager to learn. Why is Booker so fucking <em>difficult</em>?"</p>
<p>Nicky gives her a wry smile. "It's not a fair comparison. Those first years aren't easy for any of us. It took Joe and me half a century of bashing our heads together and making a hash of everything, you just weren't there to see it. You got lucky; we'd already put the work in before we met you. Sebastien never had that luxury."</p>
<p>"I did, though," Quỳnh says quietly. "Get lucky, that is. With you and Joe."</p>
<p>"So did we, with you," he tells her, meaning it. "So did Booker. He knows it, too, I promise you. He's just...wrestling his own demons."</p>
<p>Quỳnh looks down into her empty glass. "Aren't we all?"</p>
<p>By the time they finish the bottle together, Joe and Booker have returned. Booker makes a terse but genuine apology to Quỳnh, and even drops a light kiss atop her head before heading back up to their room. Joe settles in beside Nicky with a weary sigh. The taverna is mostly empty by now, and they're tucked away into the corner; Nicky doesn't hesitate before slipping an arm around his waist, and Joe leans his head against Nicky's shoulder gratefully.</p>
<p>"We'll look for Dimitrios's family first thing in the morning," Quỳnh tells them, idly running a finger along the rim of her empty glass. "And then we should discuss where we're heading next."</p>
<p>They all sit quietly together for a few minutes. Nicky almost thinks Joe might have nodded off until he murmurs, "Do you know what day it is?"</p>
<p>Nicky glances down at him curiously. "October…sixteenth, is it?"</p>
<p>"Yes, the sixteenth." Joe raises his head, rubbing a hand across his face. "His youngest son's birthday."</p>
<p>"Ah," Nicky says quietly. "I hadn't realized."</p>
<p>"Neither had he," Joe sighs. "Until...well."</p>
<p>Later, in the darkness of their shared bedchamber, Nicky rolls over to face Joe and kisses his hands, his cheek, his mouth, as quietly as possible but no less fervent for it, desperately grateful to have never felt so alone.</p><hr/>
<p>
  <strong>(now.)</strong>
</p>
<p>It takes three days before Booker's contact gets back to him with anything substantive. Quỳnh's not gonna like it, he thinks, but what else is new?</p>
<p>"He wants to set up a meet," he tells the others bluntly. They've gathered out on the porch. It's raining this afternoon, light but persistent, and the earth smells fresh and clean. "I'm pretty sure he's gonna ask for a favor in return."</p>
<p>"Who is the contact?" Nicky asks. He remains impassive -- unlike Quỳnh and Joe, who clearly aren't sold on this idea. Nile just watches them all quietly, uncertain of her place in this discussion, but curious to learn.</p>
<p>"You remember Surabaya, eight years ago?"</p>
<p>Quỳnh purses her lips. "CIA."</p>
<p>"Yeah," Booker confirms. "The guy who hired us, James Copley. He's freelance now. About a year ago, he reached out to me for another job, and I turned him down." He shrugs. "We don't do repeats, that's our one rule. And it wasn't our sort of thing, anyway -- more like corporate espionage. Involving Merrick Pharmaceuticals. So I figured, if he had some dirt on them then, something he'd already wanted us to look into for him, he might be an in for us now."</p>
<p>The others exchange glances. "Surabaya was a well-run op," Joe concedes. "He was a security expert, right?"</p>
<p>"Do we know why he left the CIA?" Quỳnh asks.</p>
<p>Booker leans back against the railing. "His wife died. ALS, I think. I got the impression that he left to take care of her, and then…" He gestures vaguely. "Anyway, he checks out. I didn't just reach out blindly, boss, I did my homework first."</p>
<p>"What would he be offering?" This is from Nile, unexpectedly. When they all turn to look at her, she squares her shoulders and tilts her chin up. "I mean, Merrick never actually got their hands on me. They've got, what, my name? A rumor that I survived a knife to the throat? Is that really worth sticking your necks out over?"</p>
<p>"We cannot be too careful," Quỳnh says quietly. "The world is so much smaller these days. Cell phones, cameras, the internet, DNA samples...we leave so many more footprints now."</p>
<p>"Like Joe said, Copley's a security expert," Booker explains. "He can help us disappear. Get you off Merrick's radar for good."</p>
<p>Nicky hums pensively. "It can't hurt to hear what he wants in exchange. And then we decide." He looks at Joe, and whatever he sees there must be enough, because he nods to himself and turns back to Booker. "Can we select the location for the meet?"</p>
<p>"Yeah, he already agreed to that condition." Booker tries not to let his impatience show, shoving his hands into his jacket pockets to keep them from twitching too much. "Quỳnh?"</p>
<p>She's quiet for a long time, looking out into the trees. The rain is falling harder now, rustling against the leaves. "All right," she finally says. "I'll meet with him. No promises beyond that." She gives Booker an unreadable look, then glances at Joe and Nicky. "Rotterdam, do you think?"</p>
<p>"You want to stay in the EU?" Joe asks, lifting an eyebrow.</p>
<p>"It seems expedient. As you keep reminding us, he's a security expert. I'd rather avoid border control unless it becomes necessary."</p>
<p>They have plenty of other ways to avoid the necessities of passports and the like, of course, but Booker can appreciate a desire for simplicity. "I'll set it up," he says.</p>
<p>Quỳnh gets to her feet. Once an agreement has been reached, she acts decisively. "Nicky, Joe, you'll go on ahead to scout the location. Booker and I will join you tomorrow evening."</p>
<p>They're already up and moving. Nile stands automatically as well, though she looks a little lost. "Um, what about me?"</p>
<p>Quỳnh hesitates at that, looking her over. "You can go with the boys," she decides. "It'll be educational. And I don't want you exposed, so you're better off shadowing them, anyway." That settled to her satisfaction, she heads back into the house -- likely to do her own research on Copley, Booker assumes. Well, let her. She won't find anything more than Booker did.</p>
<p>When Nile still seems mystified, hovering uncertainly on the now-empty porch, Booker chuckles. "Nicky's our sniper, Joe's his spotter," he explains. "That's why Nicky picks the location. They'll have eyes and ears on Copley the whole time. Quỳnh and I will be exposed, meeting with him; you'll be much safer behind Nicky and his rifle. And you'll still get a good overview of the meet."</p>
<p>"Oh," she says. "Okay."</p>
<p>He shoos her in. "Go on, then, Quỳnh doesn't mess around. They'll be out the door in ten minutes, max. Nicky's probably already doing your packing for you, so if you want a say in it…"</p>
<p>Nile shrugs, giving him a wry smile. "Not like any of that shit's mine, anyway."</p>
<p>At that, Booker pauses. "It is, though," he says gruffly. "I mean, I know technically it's just whatever I could grab for you at the Monoprix on my way out of Paris, but even so. Whatever is ours is yours. That's how it works, for us."</p>
<p>She's standing very still. "Don't get me wrong," she says, every word slow and deliberate. "I very much appreciate what you all did for me, getting me away from those people, and I get why we need to keep our heads down right now, but...I still have my own family, you know. "</p>
<p>His breath catches in his throat for a minute, the old, familiar ache. He tries to keep his tone gentle. "You do and you don't. This...immortality, this gift or this curse or whatever you want to call it, it changes you. Irrevocably. It takes parts of you away that you can never reclaim." Booker shakes his head, wondering how the hell this particular lesson had fallen to him, of all of them. He feels like he's the least equipped to teach it. But maybe it's the sort of thing the next-youngest always has to explain to the new kid. He can still remember what it feels like. "Quỳnh would say that the only way is forward. There's no point trying to hold onto the things you've already left behind. Whether you wanted us or not, we <em>are</em> your family now, Nile. And we'll do everything we can to keep you safe while you wrap your head around it."</p>
<p>Nile doesn't seem to have anything to say to that. Eventually, they hear Joe and Nicky's voices just inside, the sounds of equipment being assembled, and she gives a full-body shudder, like she's forcibly pulling herself out of her own head. "All right," she murmurs. "I guess I'd better make sure they don't accidentally leave me behind."</p>
<p>Booker smiles at that, muted but genuine. "They would never," he tells her, and means it.</p><hr/>
<p>
  <strong>(1812.)</strong>
</p>
<p>When war broke out again between England and her erstwhile colonies, there was little question but that they would seek to do what they could on behalf of the Americans. Not so much out of any love for the fledgling nation -- though the whole concept of revolution fascinated Nicky, in particular -- but due to Quỳnh's enduring antipathy toward the British Empire. They could hardly begrudge her it.</p>
<p>It takes them a while to find a sufficiently adventurous merchant vessel, with plans to make the Atlantic crossing this late in the season and despite the additional dangers of naval war. They manage to barter passage and a tiny cabin, posing as intrepid fortune-seekers. Joe does most of the talking. It's what he's good at.</p>
<p>So when the dreams of a man hanging by his neck in the snow begin, they've only just boarded a ship. Headed in the wrong damn direction. Later, Joe will think ruefully that it stands to reason Booker made things difficult for the rest of them from the very start.</p>
<p>They all jolt awake at much the same instant, and Quỳnh lets loose a stream of impressive invective in languages even Joe does not fully understand.</p>
<p>Nicky's hand goes to his own neck, eyes wide and wild even in the murky darkness of their cabin, and Joe would soothe him if he weren't busy trying to convince his own lungs that he can breathe just fine. "That was -- one of <em>those</em> dreams," Nicky chokes out, realization dawning. "There is a new one of us?"</p>
<p>Quỳnh laughs hollowly, holding her head in her hands. "Congratulations, boys, you just experienced your first."</p>
<p>Not technically, Joe thinks -- of course they'd dreamed of each other, in that liminal space immediately following their own original deaths; and then of Andromache and Quỳnh, on and off for decades before finally meeting them. But this is the first <em>new</em> immortal since themselves. The dream comes utterly unexpected, laden with all the visceral horror of that very first death.</p>
<p>As if to dispel it, Quỳnh fumbles for her flint and the small lamp, striking a tiny flame into existence. It casts long shadows in their narrow berth.</p>
<p>"I saw snow, endless snow," Joe says, closing his eyes to recapture it, though every inch of his skin crawls, trying to shrink away from the memory of the dream. He has been hanged before, himself, more than once; it's one of his least favorite ways to die. "I could not make out his face clearly. Bearded, his hair wild. Pale skin."</p>
<p>"He wore the uniform of a soldier," Nicky adds. "I'm not sure--"</p>
<p>"Napoleon's army," Quỳnh says wearily. Her tone brooks no argument. "Likely the Russian front, if there's that much snow this early in the season. Damn it all to hell, I am so fucking sick of Europe."</p>
<p>Nicky looks to Joe, who shrugs a little helplessly. "It took you many years to find us, the first time," Joe points out, though he doesn't feel particularly good about the argument. "And we've already embarked--"</p>
<p>"The world was larger then," is Quỳnh's reply. "There's less excuse now. And I would not wish my first century alone on anyone." She gets to her feet and begins rolling up her blanket, making a tight bundle of their scant belongings. "We can't be far off the Irish coast, all we have to do is steal a rowboat."</p>
<p>"We were never truly alone," Nicky murmurs, for Joe's ears only. "Not like he is now."</p>
<p>Joe leans in to kiss his cheek, just for a moment. "In our own ways, though, we <em>were</em>, at first. For longer than I care to remember." </p>
<p>Nicky shudders, very faintly, and grips Joe's wrist as if in apology. "I prefer not to."</p>
<p>"I know." And Joe kisses him again, because he needs to, lingering as long as he dares before Quỳnh starts making impatient sounds behind them.</p>
<p>They steal a rowboat. The process is more complicated than it sounds, but they manage it. Navigation by night when you're not precisely sure where you are to start with is also complicated, but frankly, they all survived under far worse conditions during the decades they'd spent at sea in that first desperate, futile search for Andromache. The night is clear and cold, the constellations wheel vividly above them, and Quỳnh has become a very able navigator.</p>
<p>The sun rises over steep cliffs along what must be the southwestern coast of Ireland; Joe and Nicky's hands have chafed and cracked and bled and healed so many times over on the rough wooden oars by then that Joe is convinced he has splinters permanently absorbed into his palms. There's no viable place to harbor along these cliffs, but by following the coast, they manage to find an inlet that leads to a rocky beach, and bring the rowboat in safely enough. Well, safely for them, anyway; the little boat's hull gets torn up by the rocks on the final approach, and they bail out to swim the remaining distance to the beach itself, but they hadn't planned on keeping it anyway. Once there, they take quick stock: wherever they landed clearly isn't near a major port, and there's no immediate sign of civilization. But they're all exhausted from the long night's rowing, and just relieved to have reached solid land. By mutual agreement, they decide to rest for a few hours and then strike out in search of anyone who can at least point them in the direction of the nearest town. </p>
<p>The sun is high in the sky when they settle in, having clambered up the beach to a flat, grassy field. Their bedrolls are still damp, so they just sprawl together on the grass. It's a clear, sunny day, at least, though chilly; Joe curls tightly around Nicky and drops into sleep almost at once.</p>
<p>He jerks awake when Nicky does, gasping and struggling for a moment in the circle of Joe's arms before spitting out a curse and pulling away, rubbing at his neck. Joe is slower to fully awaken, but he recognizes the signs. "Dream?"</p>
<p>"Yes," Nicky sighs. "The same again, hanging in the snow. You didn't?"</p>
<p>"Not this time." Joe pulls himself upright enough to sling an arm across Nicky's shoulders. The sun is beginning to sink low on the horizon, shimmering orange and gold on the water. The temperature has dropped, too. "The dreams don't always visit us at the same time. They didn't before."</p>
<p>Nicky nods. He scrubs his hand across his face, then frowns. "Where's Quỳnh?"</p>
<p>Her belongings are still neatly bundled beside theirs, along with her sword and scabbard, so she likely won't have gone far. Quỳnh's rather like a stray cat in some ways; she can disappear for days on end without notice. But never while they're on the road together, and she would definitely have taken her blade. "Maybe she wanted to get the lay of the land a bit?"</p>
<p>"Maybe," Nicky agrees, but he's already getting to his feet, depriving Joe of his solid warmth. At Joe's woeful look, the corner of his mouth twitches, and he extends a hand down to help Joe up as well, his grip lingering well beyond necessity. "Indulge me, yes? She can bite my head off for it later if she likes, but I'd rather be sure she's all right."</p>
<p>The land is relatively flat in all directions, apart from the cliffs, though there's a wooded area further inland. Still, once dusk falls, it will be difficult enough to find one another again. They agree to set off in opposite directions, and if they don't find her, they'll return to this beach when the sun has fully set -- which can't be more than half an hour away.</p>
<p>Joe sets off toward the west, following along the coastline as the cliffs grow steeper. The setting sun is in his eyes, but it's a beautiful stroll all the same. Ireland is such a lush, green island; Joe just wishes it didn't have to rain so much of the year to make it so. They're lucky to have landed on a day that isn't just misty and damp, but no doubt this will pass, especially as the season shifts toward winter. Hopefully they'll be able to obtain passage back to the Continent before then, though if their new brother really is in Russia, there will be far worse weather awaiting them there.</p>
<p>After about ten minutes of walking, Joe spots a dark figure standing at the cliff's edge. It can only be Quỳnh. Something in her solitary stillness gives him pause. Perhaps he should simply leave her be? But he'd promised to return to Nicky soon, and it's growing colder by the minute. They need to make a plan together about what to do next.</p>
<p>When he draws closer, a chill runs through him that's entirely unrelated to the wind off the sea. Her hair is loose and wild around her, and though her face is as though etched in marble, tears streak down her too-pale cheeks. She's also standing uncomfortably close to the edge, the toes of her boots only just barely on solid ground. If he startles her, she might fall. She'd survive, of course, but the thought makes Joe's stomach churn all the same.</p>
<p>"Quỳnh?" he calls out softly, from several feet away.</p>
<p>She doesn't turn, gives no indication whatsoever that she heard him. But when he takes another step toward her, she says, "I used to love the sea."</p>
<p>Her words are in an outdated dialect of Greek, the first language she and Andromache had used with him and Nicky. None of them have spoken it in centuries. Joe isn't sure what it means, that she's slipping back into it now, but nothing good, he thinks. He walks up carefully beside her. "It can be very beautiful," he says, in the same language. It feels strange on his tongue now.</p>
<p>"Beautiful and wild. And free. My people were fishermen, once," she goes on, her gaze distant. "The sea was life, it was bountiful. To me, it was the promise of freedom. But now all I can see in it is a trap. Endless death." She shudders, hugging herself tightly. "And yet I long for it just as much as I ever have."</p>
<p>It's been decades since she last spoke of Andromache, even obliquely. Maybe centuries. Joe's heart is a caged bird, slamming against his ribs. He feels sick with sudden fear. "Quỳnh, sweetheart, please." He doesn't even know what he's asking for.</p>
<p>"What would you have done, Yusuf?" She does look at him now, her dark eyes fathomless and empty. "If it had been your Nicolò in that coffin?"</p>
<p>"I would have thrown myself into the sea after him," he whispers. "Many, many years ago. But you are so much stronger than I, my sister."</p>
<p>Quỳnh laughs, a hollow, wild sound. "Strong? No. I'm <em>weak</em>, Yusuf. Too fucking weak to follow her. I gave up on her. It's what I always do, I give up."</p>
<p>He knows that she had despaired, before, in her first century of immortal loneliness before Andromache had found her. That she had lain down in the desert and let herself die, over and over and over again. But that was long, long ago. "No, Quỳnh," he says, urgently. "To follow her -- <em>that</em> would have been giving up. What you chose was so much harder. You kept going."</p>
<p>"How can I do it again?" she murmurs, but she's not looking at him anymore. Her face turns unerringly back toward the open sea, the gray ocean that covers whatever remains of Andromache. "How can I lead someone new into this endless life? It is too much, Yusuf, I can't bear it. It was never supposed to have been me."</p>
<p>The dreams, the new immortal. Not only his and Nicky's first, but <em>Quỳnh's</em> first as the eldest among them. Her first without her Andromache. Joe's hand flexes at his side, aching to touch her, to hold her. "You're not alone, Quỳnh," he promises. "You have us. Me and Nicky, always."</p>
<p>The sun has slipped below the waves, though the sky is still streaked with a dull orange. Nicky will be back at the beach by now, waiting for them. Worrying, probably.</p>
<p>"It's not the same," Quỳnh whispers.</p>
<p>His heart breaks for her all over again. "I know, <em>habibti</em>. I cannot even imagine. But we do love you, so much." He holds out his hand. "Please, will you not come back with me?"</p>
<p>He's not sure how many more minutes slip past while she hovers at the edge, how many heartbeats. But eventually she does take his hand, and they return to find Nicky pacing anxiously where they'd left him. His eyes are luminous with relief at the sight of them. He asks no questions.</p>
<p>They move further inland that evening, into the trees and beyond, not stopping until they can no longer hear the sounds of the waves slapping the cliffs. That night they sleep under a tree with Quỳnh curled up between them. She's only a few inches shorter than them -- still fairly tall, for a woman -- but she feels somehow tiny in Joe's arms, fragile, her bones birdlike. He meets Nicky's eyes over the crown of her head, and though they haven't spoken of it, Nicky seems to read some of what passed between Joe and Quỳnh there. He reaches out to clasp Joe's hand where it rests on Quỳnh's shoulder, lacing their fingers together, and Joe holds on just as tightly.</p>
<p>He doesn't loosen his grip all night long.</p><hr/>
<p>
  <strong>(now.)</strong>
</p>
<p>They meet with Copley at a charming outdoor cafe along the water. Nicky and his equipment are safely ensconced in an empty second-story apartment across the canal, which provides excellent sightlines. Not that Quỳnh is particularly concerned, but still, it's nice to know the boys have her back. They always do.</p>
<p>"Mr. Booker, <em>bonjour</em>," Copley says, standing to greet them. "And...Quinn, is it? A pleasure to finally meet you."</p>
<p>She can hear the Anglicization of her name in his pronunciation, and smiles faintly. The others use nicknames as cover, which vary slightly depending on the era and their pretended nationality. Quỳnh simply lets people hear whatever they want in hers. (Though she had tried out Catherine for a brief period in the fifteenth century, and despised every second of it.) She shakes his proffered hand without comment.</p>
<p>"You haven't aged a day, Booker," Copley adds with a smile.</p>
<p>Booker huffs out a laugh. "Trust me, I have."</p>
<p>Copley nods, his expression growing serious as he looks between them. "So. Merrick Pharmaceuticals. I've been...rather keenly interested in them for some time, as I believe Booker mentioned."</p>
<p>"Yes," Quỳnh says calmly. "The name came up in connection with some work we did recently, and we began to be concerned. On the topic of...medical experimentation, shall we say. Which of course any drug company would pursue, but under these particular circumstances, it did not sound as though the test subjects were consenting. It fell out of the purview of that job, but it did seem like something the CIA might take an interest in, and Booker tells me you remain in touch with your former colleagues there, so." She tilts her head to one side, regarding him. "I suppose the ball is in your court, Mr. Copley."</p>
<p>"Quite." Copley exudes geniality, a certain laid-back approachability, likely a persona he cultivated carefully as an operative. But his eyes flicker away from hers, and there's a light sheen of sweat on his brow despite the cool breeze off the canal. Something is making him nervous. Not <em>frightened</em>, precisely; just a bit off his game. Interesting. "I did some digging," he goes on, lowering his voice. "And I do believe your hunch is correct. The vast majority of Merrick's research is based out of his London headquarters, but through a shell company, they also own the former SAS base in Hereford. Supposedly it's been reworked as another laboratory."</p>
<p>Quỳnh raises an eyebrow. "What sort of lab?"</p>
<p>"The kind where people have a tendency to disappear," Copley says grimly. "It's referred to as Project Ozymandias; I haven't managed to uncover much beyond the name. Whatever Merrick is doing there, the information is being kept extremely secret. Nothing digital, paper files only. But there is currently at least one human test subject being experimented upon in that lab, and possibly more. Against their will."</p>
<p>He reaches into his briefcase and slides a manila folder across the cafe table. Quỳnh exchanges a glance with Booker, then flips it open. It contains specs on the Hereford site: blueprints, guard schedules, assorted handwritten notes. And a photocopy of the military ID of Nile Freeman, U.S. Marine Corps.</p>
<p>"She was the latest to disappear, less than a week ago," Copley says quietly. "But it seems that someone else snatched her out of Merrick's hands before she could be brought to Hereford. That was the only tangible name I could find in regards to the current test subjects."</p>
<p>Quỳnh studies the image impassively, then looks back up at Copley. "Is there something you want from us, Mr. Copley?"</p>
<p>He gestures expansively. "This is all the information I have to offer you. If it's sufficient, well and good, we need never speak of the matter again. But if you want to uncover more about what Merrick is up to…" He taps on the blueprints. "That's where you're most likely to find it. I know your team specializes in retrieval, Ms. Quinn, and you're the best I've ever seen. If you want to help those people being illegally experimented upon, well, I can think of one good way to start." His mouth twists into a wry smile. "By all means invoice me when it's done. I'd love to have something more concrete to present to my former colleagues at the Agency."</p>
<p>Several hours later, Quỳnh and Booker regroup with the others in their hotel suite on the other side of the city. "Ozymandias, really?" Joe remarks from where he's sprawled out across a couch. "<em>Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!</em>" He laughs, shaking his head. "Something tells me that this Merrick person missed the whole point of that poem."</p>
<p>"Which is?" Nile asks.</p>
<p>"That all things fade," Nicky says quietly. He's sitting cross-legged on one of the queen-sized beds. "So what do you think, boss?"</p>
<p>Quỳnh gives him a tight smile. "About hubris? Or Copley's offer?"</p>
<p>From the other bed, Nile glances between them all skeptically. "Didn't sound like an <em>offer</em> to me so much as a suggestion. We have to take him up on it?"</p>
<p>In response, Quỳnh simply tosses her the file. The documents scatter across the bedspread, Nile's own face looking up at her from the top page. Nile looks at it and grimaces. "I think he knows more than he's letting on," Quỳnh says, keeping her tone level. </p>
<p>"If we hadn't caught up to you in Germany, it would be <em>you</em> in that facility right now," Booker points out to Nile. Quỳnh gives him a sharp glance, which he doesn't seem to notice. "You wouldn't want to be rescued?"</p>
<p>"We can do some good," Nicky adds. Which means Joe is likely on board already as well. Quỳnh knows how to read a room -- you can't lead a team of immortal warriors for long without some degree of governance by consensus. And in this matter, she's not sure she disagrees. She's just...wary.</p>
<p>"This is what you do, huh?" Nile looks thoughtful. "Rescue people?"</p>
<p>"We fight for what we think is right," Nicky says firmly.</p>
<p>Joe leans back, bracing his hands behind his head. "It's not always so cut and dried. Sometimes it can get ugly. And sometimes the causes we choose turn out not to be so great. But we do try to help people who need it."</p>
<p>"And these people do," Quỳnh mutters. "Damn it, this was a lot simpler when we thought it was just Nile being targeted, but if there are more…"</p>
<p>Nile sits up straighter, eyes wide. "More like us, do you think? Immortals?"</p>
<p>"Not possible." Quỳnh shakes her head briskly, refusing to allow her thoughts to drift beneath the waves. "We would have dreamed of them, we would know. No, that may simply be a coincidence. If Merrick was already looking for test subjects, and the military brought his attention to this Marine who seemed resistant to death…"</p>
<p>"Perhaps the other subjects are unusual in other ways," Booker suggests. "It doesn't need to be supernatural. But does it really matter?"</p>
<p>Quỳnh presses her fingers to her temples and sighs. "No. All right. We'll make a plan." She looks across them all carefully, her gaze drawn at last to Nile. "Nicky, Joe, you boys still keep a place somewhere in the UK, don't you?"</p>
<p>They don't have a group safehouse there -- Quỳnh hates England and avoids it whenever possible -- but she knows her boys tend to acquire property like magpies, always inclined to nest wherever they alight. They all have their private spaces. Joe and Nicky just accumulate more of them, somehow.</p>
<p>"In the South Downs," Joe confirms. "Not exactly convenient to Hereford, though."</p>
<p>"It doesn't need to be." She glances between them once more, then decides. "Nicky, I want you to take Nile there."</p>
<p>Nicky stiffens, exchanging a look with Joe, but it's Nile who protests first. "Wait, you're leaving me out of this? Am I part of this team or not?"</p>
<p>"You haven't had enough time to train with us, not for a mission like this," Quỳnh says calmly. "Even if you had, though, I would want you far away from Merrick Pharmaceuticals. Yours is the face they would recognize."</p>
<p>"I'm a Marine, I'm not exactly helpless in a fight," Nile snaps back. "And so what if they have my ID? You plan on getting caught on any cameras?"</p>
<p>"You really wanna pull a retrieval mission shorthanded, boss?" Joe adds, still looking at Nicky.</p>
<p>Quỳnh waits until their eyes are all back on her. Predictably, Booker is staying out of the argument, but she's confident he'll back her up in this if necessary. He's already made it clear he thinks they should take this job. "We've done plenty of jobs with only three before," she reminds Joe and Nicky, rather pointedly. "It's a lightly guarded facility on the inside, according to Copley's intel. The tricky part will be getting through the perimeter, and frankly, the fewer of us there are, the easier that will be."</p>
<p>"Why leave anyone behind at all?" Nile demands. "Okay, fine, so you don't want me there, but I'm a grown-ass woman, it's not like I need a babysitter!"</p>
<p>"I will not risk you, not when you are so new." Quỳnh looks directly at Nicky. "And we will not need a sniper."</p>
<p>Nicky's jaw clenches. "I'm worth more in a fight than that, Quỳnh, and you know it."</p>
<p>"I've made my decision. Will you abide by it?"</p>
<p>After a long moment, Nicky glances at Nile, and his expression softens. He may not like being separated from Joe for a mission, but his protectiveness over their new little sister will outweigh his hurt at being left out, she knows. Really, her choice was a toss up between Nicky and Joe. If pressed, she would have pointed out that they <em>would</em> likely require Booker's deft hand with technology to break into the facility, so leaving him behind instead isn't an option. But what she told them is true: they won't need a sniper at Hereford.</p>
<p>Nile, however, might.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>"You are so new. You only had flashes of the other dreams before we found you, you did not live with them for months, for years -- how could you know?" Nicky shakes his head briskly, refocusing on Nile's face. "The true dreams, those that link us together -- they feel very different than normal dreams. You must believe me when I tell you that they are simply...unmistakeable. And now you are dreaming of Andromache in a lab."</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Content warning for canon-typical violence/experimentation. On par with what was seen in the movie, no graphic details.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>(now.)</strong>
</p>
<p>Nicky and Joe's place in the South Downs is a rustic English cottage of the sort Nile has only ever seen in period films. It's picturesque and surprisingly well-maintained. "When were you guys last here?" Nile asks, helping Nicky pull dust cloths off the furniture.</p>
<p>"Five years or so ago, I think?" Nicky shrugs. "There is a woman in the village who acts as caretaker. Her family has lived in this area for generations."</p>
<p>It's also <em>small</em> -- basically just one main room, plus a kitchen and bathroom. Nile supposes she should be grateful it has running water. From what she's gleaned via casual conversation, not all their safehouses do. Though she really hopes they were joking about the abandoned mine in France.</p>
<p>When she mentions it, Nicky just gives her a flicker of a smile. "It depends on what we use them for. This was never meant to be a true safehouse. Just...a place for us to find peace, sometimes, when we need it." He glances around the space, assessing. "You can have the bed, of course. I'll take the couch."</p>
<p>The so-called couch is barely more than a loveseat. Nile gets the impression that the bed is the primary piece of furniture when it's just him and Joe. "You'd have better luck just dragging some blankets onto the floor. But seriously, it's your bed, I really don't mind bunking down wherever."</p>
<p>Nicky shrugs. "I likely won't sleep much, anyway."</p>
<p>"Because you'll be on watch the whole time?" Nile really doesn't need a babysitter, and how the hell would Merrick even figure out she was here?</p>
<p>"That, too," Nicky agrees.</p>
<p>She wonders how often he and Joe get split up for missions. Probably not very, judging by the stink eye they'd both given Quỳnh when she announced it.</p>
<p>After taking Nile on a walk around the perimeter of the property -- "It's always important to know your terrain!" -- Nicky heads into the village alone to pick up some supplies, and Nile pokes around the tiny cottage for a while before settling onto the bed with a novel chosen more or less at random from the overflowing bookcase. It's dusk by the time Nicky gets back, and she watches him make dinner over the top of her book. He seems like the most laid back member of the team, from what she's seen so far: mild and self-contained. Even on that first night, when he and Joe rescued her from the armored van, he'd maintained a sort of preternatural calm when he spoke to her, which helped calm her in return.</p>
<p>They have pasta for dinner, and she makes fun of him for being an Italian stereotype. But it's <em>good</em>, is the thing, so she can't really complain.</p>
<p>"You know, I don't really think of myself as Italian," Nicky points out, though he's giving her his usual almost-smile, so she doesn't think he's taken offence. "Italy as a unified nation is younger than Booker, even."</p>
<p>That's kind of mind-boggling to consider. "So where would you say you're from?"</p>
<p>"Genoa. It's a port city, but it was its own republic then." He leans back in his chair, his plate mostly empty already. "You know what's funny, is that it's something like due north across the sea from where Joe was born in the Maghreb. In a better world, perhaps, we would have met as traders on the Mediterranean."</p>
<p>Nile twirls some spaghetti around her fork, imagining it. "So, wait. Joe's from, like, Morocco?"</p>
<p>"Mmm, not quite that far west. It would be Tunisia, now."</p>
<p>"Okay, cool. What the hell was he doing in the first Crusade, then? I get that <em>you</em> were all--" She gestures expressively. "Invading horde, holy war bullshit, et cetera. But weren't the Crusades all about, like, Jerusalem? I'm not all that great at geography, but even I know that Tunisia's nowhere near the Middle East."</p>
<p>Nicky's eyes soften, his gaze going distant. "No, it's not. Joe was from a merchant family. Quỳnh would say he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But I think he was where he was meant to be, where he could help those who needed it. He could have fled the city, when it was clear that they would be besieged. Many others did. But he chose to stay and help defend her." He shakes his head a little, the corner of his mouth twitching. "The man I was then...well, I have been granted many lifetimes to atone for what my people did in Jerusalem, and perhaps I will still never manage to balance those scales. Yet it brought me to him."</p>
<p>"Like destiny," Nile teases, but he nods like she's serious. "Wow, and here I thought Joe was the romantic one."</p>
<p>"Incurably so," he agrees with a smile. "Sorry, too much?"</p>
<p>"No, no, it's sweet." This is the most she's heard any of them talk about their pasts, beyond vague references and in-jokes she doesn't get. Maybe she should take advantage of it. "So when did you guys meet up with Quỳnh, then?"</p>
<p>He rests his chin on his palm. "It used to take us much longer to find each other. For Booker, it was many months after the dreams started before we tracked him down. For me and Joe, well, we were the new ones then. We didn't understand what the dreams meant for a long time, and even once we put it together, it was Andy who--" He cuts himself off, eyes darting away.</p>
<p>"Andy," she repeats softly. "That was her name?" When Nicky straightens, brows furrowing, she adds, "Booker warned me about the dreams."</p>
<p>His gray eyes clear at that, though now he just looks sad. "Ah, I should have thought to tell you, I'm sorry. Yes. You've dreamed of her, then?"</p>
<p>"A couple of times, yeah."</p>
<p>Nicky reaches out to cover her hand with his. "I'm sorry," he says again. "It's horrible enough to have lost her like that, but for you to have to suffer along with her…"</p>
<p>She shrugs it off as best she can. "It's just a nightmare, for me. But I never knew her." She squeezes his hand, then draws away. "Can you tell me about her? Booker just said I shouldn't mention her to Quỳnh, but that you or Joe might be willing to talk about her."</p>
<p>"I think that's a little unfair to Quỳnh," Nicky sighs. "But she was in a...difficult place, when we found Booker. She reacted badly when he first mentioned the dreams."</p>
<p>Nile nods. When he seems to get lost in his own thoughts, she prompts him gently: "So...Andy?"</p>
<p>"Andromache was the best of us," he says quietly. "She was our leader. Not just because she was the oldest, but because she had this power to her, this...indomitable will. You would have followed her to the ends of the earth and beyond; you couldn't help it. And she had been alone for so long, before Quỳnh arrived. She would never tell us how old she was, but millennia, certainly. She seemed ageless. Truly eternal. One simply could not imagine a world without Andromache the Scythian."</p>
<p>Night has fallen around the little cottage by then; Nile can hear crickets chirping, or maybe tree frogs. "So what happened?"</p>
<p>"About five hundred years ago, Andy and Quỳnh were in England, freeing so-called heretics from the witch trials. We used to split up, sometimes, pursue our own interests for a few months or years. This was one of those times." A pained expression flickers across his face, only noticeable in the clench of his jaw, the shadow in his eyes. "Anyway. They were accused of witchcraft themselves, trapped and caught. And when they couldn't die…"</p>
<p>"It looked like proof," Nile finishes, grimacing.</p>
<p>Nicky nods heavily. "Quỳnh would never tell us about those deaths, or what other tortures they may have been subjected to. But in the end, their captors decided that they were too powerful together, that they must be separated. They dragged Andromache away in chains and locked her into an iron maiden. And then she was taken out to sea."</p>
<p>The metal coffin underwater, a woman's pale face, screaming and raging and drowning, over and over again. Nile hugs herself, but it does nothing to dispel the chill in her bones.</p>
<p>"After Quỳnh escaped, when we found her again, we spent decades searching for Andromache, or anyone on that ship who could tell us where she was cast off." Nicky shrugs helplessly. "Quỳnh blames herself, still, for giving up. Though of course the task was impossible. But that's the reason we all dread capture. To spend eternity in a cage...it would drive anyone mad."</p>
<p>So, really, what with everything, it's no great wonder that Nile has nightmares about Andromache again that evening. The dreams shift and change, her own fears of capture and imprisonment bleeding into the original dream of Andromache's furious face, and when she jolts awake, that scream still echoes in her ears.</p>
<p>It must be well past midnight, she thinks, but Nicky is still awake, seated at the table with an open book in front of him and both a phone and handgun within easy reach. He turns when he hears her, fingers skimming over the grip of the gun just for a moment. "Nile?" he calls. "You okay?"</p>
<p>She pulls herself up to sit cross-legged, tugging the blanket around her shoulders. "Fine, I'm fine. Just a dream. Why are you still up?"</p>
<p>"Joe's on a mission," he says, which she supposes must be an answer. He turns his chair to fully face her. "Do you want to talk about it?"</p>
<p>"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bother you--"</p>
<p>Nicky just looks at her. "Yes, you have interrupted my very important worrying, such a bother." His eyes soften a little around the edges, almost like a smile. "Seriously, I could use the distraction. They would have reached the facility about forty minutes ago; it's too soon to expect to hear anything, so all I can do right now is...fret. Please, tell me about your bad dream." </p>
<p>"The same again, more or less," Nile sighs. "Drowning, at first, as per usual. And then it turned into a garden variety nightmare -- being strapped down in a lab, jabbed with needles, all that fun stuff." She fingers the hem of the blanket, scowling. "Real subtle, subconscious. I must've spent too long studying the specs of Merrick's lab or something."</p>
<p>Nicky winces sympathetically. "So you dreamed yourself there."</p>
<p>"Nah, still the woman -- I mean, Andromache." It's hard to think of her having a name, a history. "But, like, same difference, right? Just transposing one nightmare over the other…" Something in Nicky's stillness, in the sudden intensity of his gaze, makes her words stumble to a halt. "What is it? Nicky?"</p>
<p>"This new dream," he says urgently, leaning forward. "The lab. Did it have the same lucidity as the others, as when you dreamed of her in the coffin? The same sharpness?"</p>
<p>Nile blinks and pulls the blanket tighter around herself. "Uh, I guess so? But why does it matter?"</p>
<p>"You are so new." He's almost looking past her, now, speaking as though to himself. "You only had flashes of the other dreams before we found you, you did not live with them for months, for years -- how could you know?" Nicky shakes his head briskly, refocusing on her face. "The true dreams, those that link us together -- they feel very different than normal dreams. You must believe me when I tell you that they are simply...unmistakeable. And now you are dreaming of Andromache in a lab."</p>
<p>All at once he's in motion, grabbing for the phone and muttering to himself in Italian, then throwing it back down on the table again and pacing around the small room. "Damn it. I cannot interrupt -- but what if they need to know…?"</p>
<p>"Wait, slow down," Nile says, rising to her feet to join him. "It <em>is</em> just a dream, right? Why does it matter?"</p>
<p>He stops in front of her, still shifting restlessly from side to side. This is the most on edge she's ever seen him, and it unsettles something deep in her gut. "Maybe it is, and maybe it isn't. Maybe you were really seeing her, as she is now. And if so...Copley did not have names for any of the other test subjects, Nile. What if they sought you out specifically because they <em>did</em> know what you were?"</p>
<p>Her eyes widen as the implications sink in. "You mean, what if they already had an immortal to test?" </p>
<p>Nicky nods, running an impatient hand through his short hair. "I know it's only speculation, but the timing, the speed with which Merrick's people snatched you up, this secret facility… <em>Madre di Dio</em>, it is all just so convenient." He shakes his head and finally slumps back down into the chair, grimacing. "But they have gone dark for the mission, I won't be able to reach them now anyway. I suppose we'll find out one way or the other when they check in."</p>
<p>"When's that supposed to be?"</p>
<p>Nicky glances at his wristwatch. "About half an hour until the first scheduled check-in. If they miss that, the next is another hour after that."</p>
<p>There's no going back to sleep now. Nile finds some tea leaves and figures out how to brew them, and they sit together at the little table and wait for the phone to ring.</p>
<p>The first scheduled time comes and goes, as does the second. By dawn, it becomes ominously clear that the rest of the team isn't going to be checking back in at all.</p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <strong>(1534.)</strong>
</p>
<p>It has been six days since Nicolò was imprisoned, five weeks since he arrived here in Baghdad, and just shy of two months since he last saw Yusuf, and he is <em>bored</em>. Bored, lonely, a little horny, and stuck in a prison cell -- never a fun combination.</p>
<p>He can't complain too much about the accommodations. The Safavids are cultured and very nearly humanitarian, as rulers go these days, and the cell is small but clean, with an arrow-slit of a window set close to the ceiling that lets in a narrow shaft of sunlight. Nicolò watches it trace its slow arc across the brick walls over the course of the days. He's chained to the wall, of course -- they're not that sloppy -- but is also fed regularly enough and permitted a bucket of water and rag to awkwardly wash himself with as much dexterity as his manacled wrists can manage. After the first day of angry but impersonal questioning, his jailors seem content to let him cool his heels in peace. Likely they're too busy preparing for the city's imminent invasion to worry about one supposed (and clearly ineffectual) Ottoman spy.</p>
<p>The frustrating part is that, of course, Nicolò <em>isn't</em> spying for the Ottomans. Their latest sultan, Suleiman, has been making a great nuisance of himself even so far away as Vienna, as he tries to expand his borders in seemingly every direction. So, yes, perhaps Nicolò is sort of a spy, but on <em>behalf</em> of the Safavids, not against them! He'd been doing his damnedest to pass intelligence on the Ottoman army's movements along to Baghdad's defenders, in the hopes of saving the city, while Andromache and Yusuf remained behind Ottoman lines and Quỳnh acted as go-between.</p>
<p>Nicolò likes Baghdad. And he'd seen it sacked before, centuries ago, watched in horror as the House of Wisdom burned and the Tigris River ran red with blood. He will not let anything like that happen here again.</p>
<p>Not that he can do anything to prevent it from inside this thrice-cursed cell.</p>
<p>Something is happening today, he can feel it. He can normally hear street sounds from outside -- only faintly, but still, the everyday bustle of life happening elsewhere. Today, all is eerily silent. And the guards have not made their usual rounds; the prison stands silent as well.</p>
<p>God in Heaven, he is so fucking bored.</p>
<p>When he hears many sets of footsteps pounding down the hallway and doors slamming, he gets to his feet with a sigh of relief. Finally, something new. He has no weapon, of course, but he doesn't particularly need any. He just wants <em>out</em>.</p>
<p>There's a rattle of keys in the door to his cell, and he waits patiently for whoever it is to come fetch him. He could have broken his thumbs to escape the manacles days ago, could be waiting behind the door to ambush the guard and steal his sword and kill anyone he encountered on the way out...but that would have raised an alarm, and caused him a lot of irritation. Besides, he still doesn't actually want to <em>kill</em> any Safavids just for the crime of being stupid and scared enough to believe him a spy. They'll need all the fighters they have against the Ottoman army. And he doesn't think they plan to execute him yet.</p>
<p>His door slams open inward. It's not a prison guard.</p>
<p>"Took you long enough," he tells Quỳnh with a faint smile. "Care to get these chains off of me?"</p>
<p>"Lazy," she chides, but her cheeks dimple. She tosses him the ring of keys. "Figure it out for yourself. Yusuf!" she yells back down the corridor. "Found him!"</p>
<p>Nicolò keeps his face impassive, though his heart leaps up into his throat and his fingers fumble the keys a little. <em>Christ</em> but he's missed him. And had not actually expected to see him here before the battle…?</p>
<p>"Wait," he demands, "if you are all here, what happened with the army?"</p>
<p>Before Quỳnh can respond, Yusuf more or less flings himself through the open doorway. He pauses a foot away from Nicolò, eyes bright and searching, assessing his condition. Apparently satisfied, he closes the remaining distance in order to throw his arms around him. Nicolò promptly drops the keys with a clatter and returns the embrace, hard. It's a bit awkward, what with the chains, but he has enough freedom of movement for this, at least. He presses his cheek against Yusuf's, reveling in the soft scratch of his beard, the warm, familiar scent of him.</p>
<p>"Hello," Nicolò murmurs into his ear. "For the record, two months is about fifty-nine days too long."</p>
<p>Yusuf laughs, and Nicolò can feel it rumble against his own chest. "You're telling me." He pulls back enough to kiss him warmly, and Nicolò sighs against his lips.</p>
<p>"If you boys are quite finished?" That's Andromache, leaning against the doorway with her arms folded across her chest, eyebrow raised. Quỳnh elbows her with a grin.</p>
<p>"No," Yusuf tells her firmly, but Nicolò just chuckles and disentangles himself, crouching down to retrieve the fallen keys. Yusuf sighs, much put upon, but helps free him from the manacles and then runs his thumb softly over Nicolò's bruised wrists until the marks fade away.</p>
<p>Nicolò gives him one more quick kiss, light and reassuring. "I'm fine," he promises. "The only thing I was at risk of dying from was the boredom." He stretches, hearing his spine pop, and they rejoin the women. "So what happened? Did the Ottomans call off the attack? I haven't heard any fighting."</p>
<p>"Well, you're right about that much," Andromache says. "But not because the Ottomans chickened out. They took the city with no resistance, starting early this morning."</p>
<p>"The Safavids fled," Yusuf adds with a wry smile. "They left the city undefended. A bloodless victory for Suleiman, for a change."</p>
<p>Nicolò just shakes his head. "You've got to be kidding me. Well," he sighs, "we <em>were</em> trying to avoid needless bloodshed, I suppose."</p>
<p>"Huzzah," Andromache drawls.</p>
<p>Quỳnh rolls her eyes with a huff. "Boring."</p>
<p>"Hey, at least you haven't been kicking your heels in a cell for the past week." Nicolò glances down the corridor, where other prisoners are beginning to stir. It looks like Quỳnh was just opening every door she found. "Speaking of which, can we get out of here before the new overlords arrive?"</p>
<p>They linger in the city for another week, to ensure the transfer of power goes relatively painlessly for the civilians who never had any say in who ruled them anyway. It goes about as well as could be expected. Since the citizens had offered no resistance to the invaders, there's little in the way of reprisals, and Suleiman seems pleased to have won such a storied city fully intact. Once Andromache is satisfied that there's nothing in particular for them to be doing here any longer, they slip outside the city walls under the cover of darkness and ride west, dodging around the army camps until they're back out in the open desert. They'll ride until they reach the Euphrates and then follow the river northwest, along the old traders' route.</p>
<p>They make camp an hour or so before dawn, within sight of the riverbank. Nicolò gives a sigh of relief as he stretches out on his bedroll, looking up at the fading stars. He may have been a city boy born and bred, but he's come to appreciate the stillness and curious privacy of being out in the middle of nowhere.</p>
<p>Yusuf drops down beside him, the long line of his body pressed all along Nicolò's side. They haven't really had a moment to themselves since the capture of Baghdad. A week of constant motion throughout the city by day, nights crammed into a crowded guesthouse alongside nervous refugees who'd fled the Ottoman approach only to wind up under their thumbs after all -- not exactly conducive to the reunion Nicolò had craved after two months' separation. Judging by the way Yusuf's fingers tangle in his hair, the slow press of his open mouth along Nicolò's neck, he seems to be of the same mind.</p>
<p>"I've missed you, Nico." Yusuf's breath is hot against the shell of Nicolò's ear, and Nicolò shivers pleasantly and rolls onto his side so that they can kiss more easily.</p>
<p>"We should take some time to ourselves," Nicolò says eventually, when they pull apart to catch their breath. He can hear Andromache and Quỳnh murmuring quietly together from their own shared bedroll, familiar and beloved but just too <em>near</em> for him right now. He's still a little miffed at Andromache for keeping Yusuf behind Ottoman lines with her for two fucking months instead of letting him accompany Nicolò into the city in the first place. Sure, it would have made their task somewhat more difficult, but what difference would it have made in the end?</p>
<p>Yusuf hums to himself as his hand slips up under the hem of Nicolò's shirt, tracing untold patterns against the warm skin there. "They've been talking about heading north; Andromache says she's sick of the Ottomans. England, maybe, to see what shit their new Church is stirring up there."</p>
<p>"All because some spoiled king wanted to divorce his wife," Nicolò scoffs, then sucks in a breath as Yusuf thumbs over a nipple. "Ah, God, I've missed you…"</p>
<p>Some minutes later, he tries to recapture the thread of that conversation. "You hate England, though."</p>
<p>"Cold and damp, all the time," Yusuf agrees, tonguing at Nicolò's collarbone. "Mmm. Could stay with them until we reach the coast, then find some nice quiet island somewhere for a few months…"</p>
<p>"Years," Nicolò counters breathily. He's gripping Yusuf's hip, hard, trying not to just rut up against him. "Decades, maybe."</p>
<p>He can feel Yusuf's grin against his neck. "All the time in the world, Nicolò."</p>
<p>They tell the women their plans in the morning, and Quỳnh agrees readily enough that Nicolò suspects she's been craving some alone time with her lover, too. It takes a week or so to reach the port of İskenderun, but it's a pleasant enough journey. At the docks, they agree to meet in London in two years' time. Nicolò will miss them, of course; they are the sisters of his heart. But Yusuf's eyes glow with promise when they meet his, and he's not sorry to have this man all to himself for a little while.</p>
<p>His last glimpse of Andromache is her waving goodbye from the rail of a sailing ship, tall and proud, her eyes green as the Mediterranean waters, Quỳnh tucked against her side.</p>
<p>Nicky wishes he'd known, then, that it truly <em>was</em> goodbye.</p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <strong>(now.)</strong>
</p>
<p>Joe's return to consciousness is awkward and ponderous. His limbs feel heavy, his head aches, and a suppressed cough burns at the back of his throat. Vaguely, he thinks he must not have died of whatever it was; resurrections don't feel like this. Returning after a death is sharp and gasping, life burning through his veins like a wildfire. Now, he blinks slowly awake, mind still a haze. "Nicolò?" he mumbles.</p>
<p>There's an intake of breath beside him. "He was not with us," Quỳnh says in Vietnamese, voice low and soothing. "Just you, me, and Sebastien."</p>
<p>Memories begin slotting into place. Hereford at night, scanning the perimeter. The facility was only lightly guarded by a handful of bored-looking security personnel in dark uniforms. "Like they don't want anyone to think there's anything here worth guarding," Quỳnh murmured at Joe's side.</p>
<p>They'd wanted to avoid unnecessary bloodshed; leaving a trail of corpses would not make it any easier for them all to disappear afterward, and this was not Merrick's primary base of operations. Copley's intel enabled them to avoid the guard rotations and slip into the facility unnoticed. The lab was supposedly in the sub-basement level, and they reached it without incident. Inside, however…</p>
<p>A bare room. No equipment, no test subjects. Joe remembers wondering if maybe the blueprints had simply been incorrect. Then the heavy steel door slammed shut behind them, and a distinctive hissing sound emanated from the air vents set high in the walls.</p>
<p>Booker swore fluently as he dropped his backpack and began rummaging through it for his ubiquitous blocks of C4, while Joe and Quỳnh both yanked the fronts of their shirts up over their noses as makeshift masks, but whatever the gas was, it was potent. Joe managed to lob a grenade at the door, which wasn't strong enough to blast through it; that's the last thing he remembers before passing out.</p>
<p>Joe squeezes his eyes shut, trying to will away the headache. It's beginning to ease as the last aftereffects of the gas work their way out of his system. His hands are bound in front of him -- zip tie, feels like -- and when he moves to sit up, he realizes his ankles are shackled as well, though with significantly more range of motion. "Where are we?"</p>
<p>"Armored van," Quỳnh replies. "Not sure how long we were out."</p>
<p>"Shut up," someone else says. Joe looks up, assessing their surroundings. Definitely a van, very much like the one they'd rescued Nile from in Germany. Quỳnh and Booker are both similarly restrained on the floor, flanking him; both must have woken up before he did. They've been stripped of their tactical gear and weapons, of course. Four guards sit along benches surrounding them.</p>
<p>Quỳnh ignores them, adding, still in Vietnamese, "My bet is that they're taking us directly to Merrick's headquarters in London."</p>
<p>One of the guards grabs her shoulder roughly and yanks her backward, away from Joe. "Hey, I said shut up!"</p>
<p>She regards him coolly, unimpressed.</p>
<p>"Think they know about our talent?" Booker remarks lazily. His Vietnamese has never been as good as theirs, but he can make himself understood.</p>
<p>Joe grins, feral. "Let's find out."</p>
<p>Four against three. Even given the handicap of the restraints, really, it's nowhere near a fair fight.</p>
<p>When they've finished, Joe sits more comfortably on the bench with a sigh, scrubbing some of the blood off his face with his sleeve. He misses Nicky, feeling the tangible absence at his side. Joe always feels a little off-balance fighting without him. Though he is selfishly grateful that Nicky still has his freedom, at least. He hates the sight of his beloved in chains.</p>
<p>"So Copley betrayed us, I assume?" he remarks idly, switching back to English now that they're alone, as Booker slumps down onto the bench beside him.</p>
<p>Quỳnh remains standing, as balanced in a moving van as she used to be on horseback, or striding across the deck of a ship in a storm. "Presumably," she replies. Her tone is completely without inflection. "The question is, how much did he betray?"</p>
<p>Joe blinks at her, then at Booker, who does not seem at all surprised by the question. His shoulders hunch forward. "I don't know," Booker sighs. "I trusted him, Quỳnh."</p>
<p>"How much <em>could</em> he betray, Sebastien?"</p>
<p>It feels as though they're speaking in an alien tongue. "Quỳnh," Joe says slowly. "What…?"</p>
<p>Quỳnh ignores him, glaring daggers at Booker. "How long have you been conspiring together?"</p>
<p>"It's not like that," Booker says roughly. "I didn't think -- this wasn't supposed to -- look, <em>I</em> reached out to <em>him</em> this time, I swear it's not like that! It's been more than six months since we last had any kind of contact--"</p>
<p>This is not particularly enlightening, and the sinking sensation in Joe's gut warns him that he might not want to understand, actually. But that's when the van lurches to a stop in a way that feels very final.</p>
<p>"Fuck," Quỳnh says succinctly, as the door to the back of the van swings open.</p>
<p>There are many, many more guards waiting for them here. With guns. Probably too many to fight through, Joe thinks with an internal sigh. He wonders what they did with his sword and how much of a pain it will be to retrieve it after all this...nonsense is over.</p>
<p>He very deliberately refuses to think about what this nonsense will entail.</p>
<p>"Jesus Christ," one of the new guards mutters, when he sees what happened to the ones from the van.</p>
<p>Quỳnh gives them her most unsettling smile. "Take us to your leader."</p>
<p>Despite the fact that the three of them are in chains and being prodded along at gunpoint, she still gives the impression that she's the one giving the orders, like they're all just doing this as a favor to her, and Joe loves her for it. Whatever was going on between her and Booker in the van, they present a united front now, Booker at her back glowering at anyone who so much as glances at her sidelong. Joe takes up the rear, assessing. They start in an underground car park, then are led into a freight elevator. Well, Joe presumes it must be, given the size of it, but it feels altogether too fancy.</p>
<p>When they emerge, it becomes clear that they're in a London high-rise, floor-to-ceiling windows offering a stunning view of the cityscape. Dawn is just breaking. In another life, Joe would be readying himself to perform the Salat al Fajr; now the familiar words of the prayers run soothingly through the back of his mind, grounding him a little. His faith comes and goes in cycles, these days, and he's mostly shed the outward trappings, but there's a certain comfort in old rituals. He could use a little comfort at the moment. Their captors might not be able to kill them permanently, but somehow he suspects they're in for rather worse than a slap on the wrist.</p>
<p>They've missed all their scheduled check-ins, he realizes with a pang. Nicky will be frantic by now. Joe will have to find a way back to him quickly. Just as soon as they've figured out what these people want with them and how to break free.</p>
<p>A young man with unruly curls and an obnoxious aura of wealth appears, eyes bright and manic in the way of the over-caffeinated. Given the hour, Joe can't blame him for that part -- he's either been up all night or had to drag himself out of bed far too early -- but he absolutely can and will hold him accountable for his style choices. A sports jacket over a hoodie? Even Nicky has better fashion sense than <em>that</em>.</p>
<p>"Ah!" the man says gleefully. "My lady, gentlemen, welcome! I've heard so much about you. I do hope you shan't disappoint."</p>
<p>"I doubt we can say the same," Quỳnh replies. "Mr. Merrick, I presume?"</p>
<p>Merrick beams. "My reputation precedes me, I see. 'Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'"</p>
<p>Joe manages not to laugh at him outright, but it's a near thing.</p>
<p>"Let's get off on the right foot here, shall we?" Merrick goes on. "Although I am most certainly the wronged party in this matter -- very naughty of you, breaking into my laboratories! -- I'm willing to be magnanimous, since it brought you all to my doorstep. You see, I believe we can accomplish a great deal of good together. Assuming, of course, that all of the wondrous things I've been told about you are true."</p>
<p>"And what would those be?" Quỳnh asks sweetly. She's practically batting her eyelashes at him, always a bad sign. Her bound wrists rest docilely on her stomach in a mockery of demureness.</p>
<p>Merrick doesn't seem to realize the mortal danger he's currently in, and steps closer to her with an oily smile of his own. "I believe you know. But I'm a scientist, you see. Or rather, I have a great number of them on my payroll. And they prefer indisputable evidence."</p>
<p>"I'll give you evidence," Quỳnh says, and with a viper's speed, lashes out to loop her arms over his head, bringing his neck tightly between her wrists.</p>
<p>Joe wonders if she might actually succeed in snapping his neck, but alas, the guards move quickly to intervene, and they manage to drag Merrick out of her grasp before she can do more than choke him a little. She receives a few solid kicks to the abdomen for her pains, and both Joe and Booker lunge instinctively to her aid and are similarly restrained.</p>
<p>"Watch it," one man snaps at her. From his bearing and familiarity with Merrick, Joe would guess he's in charge of security here. "Mr. Merrick?"</p>
<p>"Yes, yes, Keane, it's fine," Merrick wheezes, waving him off. He's gripping something in his hand, something that glints in the light. "But as I was saying--"</p>
<p>With very little warning, Merrick steps back in and stabs Quỳnh in the neck. It's a letter opener, Joe thinks with dull horror. Quỳnh doesn't scream, but she pants rapidly, her eyes squeezed shut, the little blade still sticking out of the side of her neck. Merrick watches her with narrowed eyes for a few moments, then yanks it back out again. The bloody cut heals over almost instantaneously.</p>
<p>"Excellent," he murmurs. His gaze drifts dispassionately over Joe and Booker. "I assume the same goes for you two as well?"</p>
<p>Booker informs him in no uncertain terms exactly where and how he can go fuck himself. It's a real pity Merrick doesn't seem to understand French, Joe thinks.</p>
<p>"You know, we brought a cancer drug to the market last quarter," Merrick says, almost conversationally. "It’s already saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Yet, in development, it killed a quarter of a million lab mice. Now, I didn’t ask for their little permissions, and I’m not gonna ask for yours."</p>
<p>"You hear that, Book?" Joe remarks, because he really doesn't want to think too hard about the implications of that. "We're mice now."</p>
<p>"I do like cheese," Booker agrees.</p>
<p>Merrick ignores these asides. "There’s genetic code inside you which could help every human being on Earth. We’re morally obliged to take it."</p>
<p>"Moral?" Quỳnh hisses, still on her knees. These assholes likely can't see the panic in her dark eyes, but Joe can. He tries to shuffle closer to her, but the guard's grip on his shoulder tightens and pulls him back. "You dare to lecture us on morality?"</p>
<p>"I <em>dare</em> to do whatever I please." Merrick's eyes are cold now. He waves a hand, and a woman in a lab coat approaches with what look like syringes. Joe's blood runs cold. "Get them settled in, please."</p>
<p>"What? What is that?" Joe demands, while Booker protests, "Hey, wait!"</p>
<p>But the guards don't seem to care, because there's the distinctive zap of a taser at the back of Joe's neck, and then a needle, and then darkness.</p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <strong>(long, long ago)</strong>
</p>
<p>Here is a secret only Andromache will ever know: of all the immortals, before and now and yet to come, Quỳnh is the only one who did not meet her first death as a warrior.</p>
<p>They have no need for warriors in her tribe. They have peace. They have the sea. From a very young age, the girl who would be Quỳnh learns the tides, the nets, the woven fishing boats. She learns the paths from their coastal village to the nearest tribe in the fertile river delta, and trades fresh-caught fish for baskets of rice. When the monsoons come, she gathers with the rest of their tribe to listen to the old stories as rain lashes the trees. There are <em>tales</em> of battle, yes, and legendary warriors. As a child, she thrills to these in particular, hungering for something she can't put a name to.</p>
<p>She never marries. Their village is small, and she has no interest in any of the men near to her own age, nor do any of the older widowers show any interest in her. There's a young man from the river delta whom she briefly permits to court her, but though he is charming enough, she has no desire to trade the sea for a rice paddy. There's a middle-aged widow of her own tribe who does not exactly <em>court</em> her, but she's clever and sharp-tongued and Quỳnh very much enjoys the many nights they spend together. She accepts, at that point, that marriage simply is not for her. Her mother sighs over the lack of grandchildren, but such is a mother's duty, and Quỳnh is not bothered by it.</p>
<p>She is not a warrior, and she does not die by violence. It's the sea that takes her. The monsoons are heavy and strange that season, and their village floods many times over. It was built to withstand this, of course, but late one night the waters rise so high, so swiftly, that all are caught unawares. Her neighbor's toddler screams, too terrified by the rising water in their home to be able to escape, and Quỳnh is trying to calm him when the roof collapses entirely. Something strikes her head -- a tree falling directly on the hut -- and she drowns.</p>
<p>And awakens to find herself swept out to sea.</p>
<p>She washes up on an unfamiliar shore with the dawn. It's still raining. She drowned twice more overnight. She drags herself as far inland as she can manage before collapsing. And then she dreams.</p>
<p>A woman, tall and dark-haired, skin like the moon over the water and eyes like seafoam. Quỳnh has no word for <em>horse</em>, cannot describe what the woman is doing, but it has the feel of a boat skimming across waves. Her axe dances in her hands, traces mesmerizing arcs through the air. She is fierce, and glorious, and so, so beautiful.</p>
<p>These dreams were only ever Quỳnh's.</p>
<p>It takes her many, many days to find her way back to her village. There she discovers that four others had died in the flood, but she is the only one to return. <em>Spirit</em>, they call her, these people who have known her from birth, who loved her, who mourned her. <em>Hungry ghost</em>. </p>
<p><em>Monster</em>.</p>
<p>This is her first death by violence. It will not be her last.</p>
<p>She drifts like the restless spirit she is, past the river delta, deep into the forests, high up into the mountains. She dies and dies and dies again, sometimes from accident, sometimes at another person's hand. She learns to take life in return for her own. She weeps at the lesson.</p>
<p>She dreams, and dreams, and dreams. She makes no friends, builds no home. Her dream-woman is her only companion. She rides, and fights, and laughs, and lives, and Quỳnh tries to figure out a way to live through her.</p>
<p>She does not age. Death loses all meaning. She avoids human settlements, spends decades atop the highest mountain peaks, wanders through deserts parched of all life. Quỳnh never had a word for <em>desert</em> before. She never knew a world without the sea. Now, she doesn't know if she will ever see water again.</p>
<p>Eventually she lies down on the dry earth and lets the dreams consume her.</p>
<p>When Andromache finds her, it will be many weeks before Quỳnh comprehends that she's real, in the flesh, and not still a dream. With Andromache, she relearns how to live. She remembers how to smile. Andromache teaches her new languages, with words for <em>horse</em> and <em>desert</em> and a thousand other unfathomable things; she shows her how to wield an axe, how to shoot a bow. She helps Quỳnh, who refuses to remember the name given her by the people who cast her out, to rename herself: the night-blooming flower, the unexpected life emerging out of darkness. It seems impossible that there might be anything for Quỳnh to teach her in return, but: Andromache has never woven a basket.</p>
<p>That's a place for Quỳnh to begin.</p>
<p>They have long since left the desert, moving south and west, where the climate and vegetation is not dissimilar to that of Quỳnh's first life. Bamboo is plentiful here. She shows Andromache how to split the bamboo stalks into thinner strips, how to soften the toughest reeds. She teaches her the simple plait patterns, and smirks when Andromache complains that it's much easier to braid hair than plants. Her fingers twine around Andromache's as she shows her how to pull the weave more tightly. Andromache's first attempt is flat and ragged, with gaps wide enough that an egg could slip through them. She huffs and whines, and Quỳnh, without thinking too hard about it, laughs and kisses the pout of her lower lip.</p>
<p>Quỳnh is certainly not the first to teach Andromache how to love, but she thinks perhaps <em>this</em> feeling is new to them both.</p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <strong>(now.)</strong>
</p>
<p>"You need to sleep."</p>
<p>Nicky doesn't look away from his laptop screen. Well, technically it's Quỳnh's laptop, but she'd left it with them for safekeeping since she wouldn't be needing it on the job, and so this is what Nicky's using. It helps that she has many very useful programs already set up.</p>
<p>"Nicky, seriously."</p>
<p>"I'm fine," he says distractedly. Why hadn't he spent more time studying hacking with Booker? This is absolutely maddening. He knows the basics, can crack most companies' security systems with time and patience, but Copley is ex-CIA and way out of Nicky's league. And time is not on their side. Every hour, every <em>minute</em> those people have his family in their clutches is too long. Capture, imprisonment -- these are already bad enough. But by those who might actually know their secret? In this day and age?</p>
<p>When he closes his eyes, he imagines Joe strapped onto a laboratory table, needles piercing every inch of his beautiful skin, and it's all Nicky can do not to scream with frustration.</p>
<p>Nile covers his hand on the trackpad with her own. Her dark eyes are concerned. "Look. You won't be any good to them if you pass out from exhaustion. When was the last time you slept? Not last night, that's for sure."</p>
<p>"The night before," he says dismissively. "I'm fine, Nile." He gives her his most sincere face, the one that makes Joe laugh and insist <em>you're not fooling anyone, Nicolò,</em> but still usually works on everyone else, even Quỳnh. "You haven't been around for missions before. This is normal for me, really."</p>
<p>"The rest of the team is missing," she points out. "I'm guessing there's nothing normal about this."</p>
<p>Sarajevo in '93 flashes vividly through Nicky's memory for a moment, and that's just the most recent example that leaps to mind. "It's...not as uncommon as one might hope."</p>
<p>"You and Joe usually get separated all those other times, too?"</p>
<p>The breath catches in his throat, and he swallows hard. "No," he admits softly. "Not usually."</p>
<p>After a long moment, Nile pulls up a chair behind him. "Okay. So where are we at?"</p>
<p>"Nowhere useful," Nicky sighs. "Merrick has very good security. I've narrowed it down to three different locations where they might be held, but that's assuming they're in one of the facilities that's actually owned outright by Merrick Pharmaceuticals. I haven't even managed to uncover the Hereford lab yet, and we already know it exists."</p>
<p>"What about tracking down Copley? I mean, even if he didn't deliberately set them up, he's got to know something, right?"</p>
<p>"Security expert," Nicky reminds her grimly. "I can't find any property in the U.K. associated with his name…"</p>
<p>Nile leans forward on her elbow, looking thoughtful. "Follow the money? That's how we track militants. If he really was working for Merrick, there should be some kind of paper trail."</p>
<p>"It's a good thought, though I haven't had much luck with the financials so far--"</p>
<p>An alert dings at the top right corner of the screen. Nicky just blinks at it for a moment. The clock says it's 15:08, he notices idly, which makes them exactly twelve hours late now for that first scheduled check-in…</p>
<p><em>Exactly</em> twelve hours. Quỳnh has her idiosyncrasies; she likes scheduling times based around eights instead of on the hour or half hour. She claims it's easier to remember that way.</p>
<p>He clicks on the alert, which opens a simple .txt file. It contains an address just outside of London.</p>
<p>"Huh?" Nile says. "Where'd that come from?"</p>
<p>Nicky closes his eyes and breathes. "Quỳnh, you absolute <em>bastard</em>."</p>
<p>Nile is already pulling up Google maps. "That's a residential address," she says, mystified. "That can't be where Merrick would have taken them -- and how would she have even known…?"</p>
<p>"Copley," Nicky says, getting to his feet in a rush. "She did her own research on him before they met with him, and she's much better at this than I am. So. Bet you five hundred euros that's Copley's home address."</p>
<p>"No bet," Nile says automatically. "But--"</p>
<p>"Quỳnh doesn't like leaving things to chance." Nicky knows his voice is very flat. He doesn't care. If Copley has any answers, he's going to get them out of him.</p>
<p>Nile makes a faint sound of disbelief when he drags the bed away from the wall. Underneath it is a rug, and under that is a trap door to the cellar. And the cellar holds their weapons cache. This little English cottage is a place that he and Joe come when they need to find peace; that doesn't mean it's <em>not</em> a safehouse.</p>
<p>He packs mechanically, keeping his mind focused on logistics. He and Nile are only two people; there's only so much they can carry. And they will need to move fast. Better to pack light.</p>
<p>Nile accepts the bags he tosses up to her without comment, and helps load them into the boot of their car. But something in her expression arrests him, forces him to slow down and consider her. She's staring down at a rifle, and she looks...not scared. But there's a certain degree of resignation there that worries him. And even in this moment, Nicky cannot be so callous as to ignore that. What kind of person would that make him?</p>
<p>"Nile," he says softly. "You did not sign up for this. You can stay here -- you should be safe, there's cash in the bedside table if you need more supplies…"</p>
<p>She huffs out a hollow laugh. "You're giving me a choice?"</p>
<p>"There's always a choice," he tells her, meaning it. "We did not choose immortality. That is ours no matter what, whether we like it or not. And we are family no matter what. But everything else? Yes, that we choose." He takes a deep breath. "I choose to follow Quỳnh because I know she is always trying her best. I choose to do this work because I believe it puts some good in the world. I choose to keep fighting because I have stood by and done nothing before, and I will <em>never</em> make that mistake again. I choose Joe, day after day after day after day, and perhaps it seems like no choice at all on my part anymore but oh, how I choose him, I choose <em>him</em>." He swallows hard, forces himself to refocus on Nile's anxious face. "But I have had a very long time to think about all of this, and a long history of choices to draw from. If you need to choose <em>time</em>, I will respect that with all my heart."</p>
<p>Nile stares at him. When she blinks, he thinks her eyes are a little damp, but her voice is steady. "Oh. Thanks. I...Christ, I don't really know up from down right now, if I'm gonna be honest, but…" She squares her shoulders, a little gesture he's already become familiar with. It's how she holds herself when she's gonna do what she needs to do, and damn the consequences, and she's wonderful, she really is. "Okay. Let's do this. Don't get me wrong," she adds before he can respond, "I will likely need, like, a solid month to myself to freak out about all of this later, and I want to call my mom right now so badly I might cry about it in the car, but you people have been good to me and, like, leave no man behind, right? Just…" She bites her lip. "<em>Please</em> can I drive this time? Because I'm sorry, but you drive like a crazy person and I don't wanna die today until I have to."</p>
<p>It actually startles a genuine laugh out of him, and by the widening of her eyes, Nicky realizes this may be the first time she's witnessed his laughter. "Sure, Nile," he tells her. "You can drive."</p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <strong>(1188.)</strong>
</p>
<p>They're well into Persia, following the old Silk Road route eastward, when they first hear the whispers: the new pope has called for a third Crusade to retake Jerusalem from Salah ad-Din.</p>
<p>Yusuf has walked the earth for a hundred and twenty years now. The weariness that settles into his bones at this news makes him <em>feel</em> his age in a way he so rarely does. He is sick unto death of watching armies squabble over Jerusalem like fretful children with a toy. </p>
<p>It also sparks their first true argument with Andromache and Quỳnh.</p>
<p>They've been traveling as a foursome for the past thirty-odd years, ever since the women who haunted their dreams finally found them in Constantinople. Normally, they are both perfectly content to follow Andromache's lead; Nicolò, in particular, is still somewhat in awe of her, which Quỳnh teases him endlessly about.</p>
<p>But Nicolò has a stubborn streak to rival even Andromache's millennia of hard-earned patience, and Yusuf supposes it was bound to come to a head eventually. He and Quỳnh have done the lion's share of setting up camp for the night while Nicolò and Andromache argue it over.</p>
<p>"We can do some good!" Nicolò is insisting. He wants to turn back and ride for Jerusalem at once, because of course he does. "Isn't that the whole point of this eternal life? To help avert evil where we can?"</p>
<p>"There's already been two rounds of this crusading nonsense in your brief lifespan alone," Andromache retorts, exasperated. "If they haven't sorted their shit out yet, why on earth do you think <em>you</em> can make any difference this time? Haven't you and Yusuf died enough in that particular war?"</p>
<p>"Exactly! We have fought this same war twice over already, we know how both sides think and what they hope to accomplish. We are uniquely positioned to be able to end this conflict once and for all."</p>
<p>Andromache shakes her head. "You can't imagine how young you sound. This isn't some misunderstanding that just needs clearing up. Nearly every war in history happens because some people get greedy and want more than what they currently have, and decide to kill a bunch of other people to get it. That's the Crusaders. You can't <em>reason</em> them out of it. And there are too damn many of them for the four of us to make any difference in battle, immortal or no."</p>
<p>Nicolò's jaw is set in a manner Yusuf has become altogether too familiar with. "We can try."</p>
<p>"You risk us all," Quỳnh points out. "You have been immortal for nearly a century now, and have the two of you even left the Mediterranean in all that time?"</p>
<p>Nicolò blinks at her, unprepared for this particular angle of attack. "We've traveled as far as Baghdad before. And the sea is vast, touching many different lands. But what does that matter?"</p>
<p>"You've been drawn back into the so-called Holy Land for decades, like the tide ebbing and flowing back into the beach." Quỳnh feeds another branch into their campfire, and Yusuf watches it catch into flame. "Haven't you learned what happens when you linger in one place for too long?"</p>
<p>"We have," Yusuf says quietly. It had taken them a while to realize, at first, that not only could they not be killed, but they were not aging, either. It was during those early years when their relationship finally tipped over from friendship into something more, when they were still learning each other and wholly enraptured by it. They put down roots in Alexandretta and allowed their romance to blossom there. And for a time, they were so absorbed in love that they forgot to concern themselves with those around them. </p>
<p>They did not age. They did not notice, but their neighbors did, and began to whisper about it. And then Nicolò had an accident while working -- he was a fisherman, there -- and too many people saw his hand impaled by the hook. People noticed when it healed far too quickly, when he returned to work the next day as though nothing had happened. Two nights later, their modest little house burned to ashes. They never learned who threw the torch, and they never returned to Alexandretta.</p>
<p>Nicolò shifts closer to Yusuf, their shoulders bumping, and Yusuf reaches out to trace gentle circles along the palm of Nicolò's hand. "This is different," Nicolò tells the women, stubborn as ever. "We never lived in Jerusalem during peacetime, only fought there, and it has been decades since the last crusade. No one will know us now."</p>
<p>"You can't keep fighting the same war over and over again," Andromache says heavily. "And Quỳnh is right, it's dangerous to keep returning to the same place, so frequently. The young men you fought alongside in the last crusade are simply older men now. Someone may remember." She gives them a wry smile. "As a lone Frank among Muslims, you already stand out enough. The pair of you together, though?"</p>
<p>Nicolò's fingers lace through Yusuf's, and Yusuf gives his hand a soft squeeze. "What, while you and Quỳnh are so inconspicuous, I suppose?" Nicolò demands.</p>
<p>"He does have a point there, darling," Quỳnh remarks with a grin.</p>
<p>Andromache rolls her eyes and waves a dismissive hand. "Fine. Look, if you're so damn determined to dive back into your holy war, it's not like there's anything I can do to stop you. But we're not going with you. And you should ask yourself: do you honestly think there's <em>any</em> good you can do for this crusade? Or are you just using these people as props in your own selfish, misguided attempt at atonement? Because you can't undo the mistakes you made in your first life, Nicolò." She regards him steadily across the fire, her face as compassionate and austere as that of a pagan goddess carved in marble. "That's the cost of immortality: we can only move forward. Don't waste entire lifetimes trying to look back over your shoulder."</p>
<p>When Nicolò can't come up with a quick retort, she gets abruptly to her feet. "I'm going for a stroll. Quỳnh, care to join me?"</p>
<p>Quỳnh does, of course, and they wander off beyond the circle of firelight. The trade route currently follows a thin river which snakes through these foothills; on the other side of the mountains, Andromache told them, there are forests leading up to the coast of an inland sea -- not so vast as the Mediterranean, but surpassingly large all the same. Yusuf isn't sure what manner of wildlife inhabits this river, but the women have crisscrossed these lands since time immemorial, and he's pretty sure they can look after themselves.</p>
<p>His hand is still clasped in Nicolò's. Yusuf tugs gently, until he shifts his gaze away from the flames to meet Yusuf's eyes instead. "They don't understand," Nicolò says. "We can make this right. We can at least <em>try</em>."</p>
<p>He would follow Nicolò to the ends of the earth and beyond; he would die a thousand times to remain at his side. "We can try," he echoes.</p>
<p>But Nicolò knows Yusuf as well as his own soul, by now, and he frowns, those vivid eyes searching Yusuf's face. "You think Andromache is right."</p>
<p>"I think," Yusuf says quietly, "that I have long since tired of watching your blood spill out over that particular patch of sand." He brings Nicolò's hand to his lips, kisses his fingers. "But if you ask it of me, I will go with you. Always."</p>
<p>Nicolò presses their foreheads together, his free hand coming up to clasp the back of Yusuf's neck. "I'm so tired of this war, Yusuf," he admits, his voice small. "God forgive me, I am <em>tired</em> of it. It just goes round and round and never gets any better, and every time we circle back to Jerusalem I see the streets running red with blood again while I did nothing to stop it, and nothing I do now ever seems to wipe them clean."</p>
<p>There was a time when Yusuf, too, hated him for it. But never quite as much as Nicolò hated himself. "You cannot take all their sins onto yourself, Nico. For your own..." He kisses Nicolò's brow, lingering there, then the corners of his eyes, his cheeks, the strong line of his jaw. "I believe God forgave you long ago. I know I did." He rubs their noses together, presses another kiss to the edge of Nicolò's generous mouth. "Someday, I hope you will find a way to forgive yourself."</p>
<p>Fingers tighten in Yusuf's hair, and Nicolò exhales a shaky breath against his lips. "How can I ever make it right, Yusuf?"</p>
<p>"By letting go of what you cannot change, and instead setting your mind to righting those wrongs that you <em>can</em>," Yusuf tells him. "It's all any of us can do. And you do, Nicolò. I see it every single day."</p>
<p>"I'm so tired," Nicolò whispers again, and Yusuf wraps his arms around him. He draws Nicolò down to their shared bedroll and tangles their legs together and kisses him, and kisses him, and Nicolò shudders with his whole body before finally returning his kisses fiercely, clinging so tight it's hard to tell where one of them stops and the other begins.</p>
<p>In the morning, they help the women pack up the camp without speaking, and when Andromache mounts her horse and glances back at them, eyebrows raised, Nicolò is the first to follow.</p>
<p>It will be centuries before they next return to Jerusalem.</p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <strong>(now.)</strong>
</p>
<p>Booker groans back to life again, hands twisting in their restraints. He has certainly died in more spectacularly gruesome ways, but still, the sensation of your organs regrowing inside of you is distinctly strange. When he has enough control over the pain to think about literally anything else, he takes quick stock of his surroundings.</p>
<p>Not much has changed. Quỳnh is still restrained on her own lab bed beside him, and Joe on the next one down. He and Joe are both shirtless, while Quỳnh has been stripped down to her bra. He can see the discarded clothing in a rumpled heap in a corner. They all have various sensors taped to their bare skin. For once, there's no sign of the scientist who's been cutting into them.</p>
<p>"She stepped out," Quỳnh says, following his gaze. "Muttering to herself about transfusions."</p>
<p>"Something to look forward to, eh?" He peers past her at Joe, who seems to be unconscious, if not dead. If he is dead, it's a little worrisome that he hasn't come back yet. "Joe?"</p>
<p>Quỳnh glances over as well, her mouth growing tight. "Still breathing. Not sure if they drugged him or if he just passed out from the pain."</p>
<p>"He got drugs?" Booker keeps his tone deliberately light. "That's not fair, I want drugs, this shit hurts."</p>
<p>She gives him the barest hint of a smile. "Maybe the doctor likes him better than you."</p>
<p>"Why not, everyone else does." His eyes roam restlessly around the lab. This is the first time they've been unsupervised since arriving at Merrick Pharmaceuticals, and he means to make use of it. "Cameras?" he asks, switching to Vietnamese. He doesn't have a laundry list of dead languages at his command like the others do, but he figures that's the one he's best at that these people are least likely to understand. It's less commonly spoken in the UK than Arabic, he's pretty sure.</p>
<p>Quỳnh shrugs as best she can, given the restraints. "I've only spotted the one above the door, but there may be others. Audio, presumably, unless they're being unforgivably sloppy. But they seem to know enough about us to be cautious." Her eyes are sharp on his. "When did it start, with Copley?"</p>
<p>He knew she would never let that go. Nor should she. "He reached out about a year ago, like I told you," he says quietly. "Not with a job offer. He'd...figured it out, about us, somehow. Not all the pieces, he wasn't <em>sure</em>, but...enough. Something during the Surabaya op must have tipped him off, and when his wife got sick, he started poking around."</p>
<p>Both Booker and Nicky had died briefly in Surabaya, if he recalls correctly. Nothing particularly grisly or memorable; sometimes the bad guys just get lucky. They'd walked it off and kept moving. But Copley had been the one to clean up any video footage afterward, and he must have noticed.</p>
<p>"He never threatened me, or any of us," Booker goes on. "I would have shut it down if he had, I would have told you, we would have taken care of him. He was just...grieving. And I could relate to that."</p>
<p>Quỳnh shakes her head. "You still should have--"</p>
<p>"He never asked outright, but I got the impression he was going to ask for some samples," Booker goes on quietly. "To help people. It's what we try to do, right? End suffering? He was trying to find a lab he could trust, someone who wouldn't laugh him out the door for even suggesting it. Merrick was mentioned, along with a couple of other companies, but nothing ever came of it. I figured he'd just given up or something. I didn't push."</p>
<p>"How could you have even considered such a thing?" Quỳnh asks. She sounds more sad than angry.</p>
<p>Booker shrugs, staring up at the ceiling. "I guess I thought, maybe, if some fancy scientists could discover how we keep living, they might find a way to end it. Don't tell me you've never wanted that, Quỳnh."</p>
<p>"No," she says fiercely. "Not like <em>this</em>, Sebastien."</p>
<p>"Not like this," he agrees hollowly.</p>
<p>After a few months of intermittent messages back and forth with Copley, of turning the idea over and over in the privacy of his head, he'd started having nightmares about it. Which, whatever, Booker has nightmares about all kinds of scenarios, both lived and imagined; they all do. But these dreams became eerily specific. An anonymous lab like this one, needles piercing skin, someone screaming. It kind of turned him off the whole idea. A few samples might not be so bad, but the risk of becoming someone's personal lab rat...well, there was a reason Quỳnh refused to allow anyone else into their secret. Because people like <em>this</em> exist in the world, too. So he'd been privately relieved when Copley dropped the matter.</p>
<p>Or so he'd thought. Apparently, Copley had at some point decided, why bother asking for Booker's help when he could hire some goons to just snatch them up?</p>
<p>Except there's still something there that doesn't add up. How could Copley have known that Booker would suddenly reach out to him again, after all these months of radio silence?</p>
<p>There's a choked inhalation as Joe finally gasps awake. Booker and Quỳnh watch him shudder and jerk in his restraints for a moment, eyes searching the room frantically before settling on them. Joe's always been so damn expressive; you can read every emotion as it passes across his face. Booker can see the disappointment in the way his shoulders sag, the twitch of a frown, how his lips almost start to form the word <em>Nicky</em> before he catches himself. "Oh, hey, guys," Joe rasps out. "Same old shit, huh?"</p>
<p>"Well, we couldn't get the party started without you," Quỳnh says casually. "Lazybones."</p>
<p>Joe's eyes crinkle in what might pass for a smile. "Sorry to disappoint. So, did I miss anything?"</p>
<p>Booker's hands clench and then release, reflexively, as he waits for Quỳnh to give him up. Joe will probably react badly, but Booker's withstood his storms before. They flare out quickly enough. The one thing Booker's got going for him is that Nicky is still free, as far as they know; if Nicky gets hurt because of this, that'll be the hardest thing for Joe to forgive.</p>
<p><em>Shit</em>, he realizes abruptly, looking at the patches of dried blood on Joe's face and chest; it's gonna be very, very bad for him when Nicky finds out.</p>
<p>"We think Copley must've caught wise to us during Surabaya," Quỳnh says blandly. She doesn't so much as glance in Booker's direction. "Not sure how he got Merrick involved, but that's as far as we've worked out so far. Any theories?"</p>
<p>Booker exhales shakily. He's going to hunt down a bakery that sells those awful durian bánh pia Quỳnh won't admit she loves, just as soon as they're out of here, even if he has to fly to Vietnam himself to find them. And the most expensive bottle of Bordeaux he can get his hands on.</p>
<p>Joe is looking between them like he's not quite sure he buys it, but doesn't press. "Does it matter? I'm more interested in theorizing how to get <em>out</em>. I realize it's been a while since my last annual physical, but this is getting out of hand." He hesitates, eyes darting to the most likely locations for cameras, much the way Booker did earlier, and reaches the same conclusion. He murmurs a low question to Quỳnh in their archaic Mediterranean Sabir; Booker can follow it well enough to guess he's asking about Nicky and Nile without using their names.</p>
<p>She shakes her head; no sign of them so far. Joe sighs and tilts his head back, closing his eyes for a moment. Hard to tell if he's relieved or disappointed. Likely a mix of both.</p>
<p>When the door to the lab bangs open again, they all jerk upright. The blonde scientist is leading the way, a tight knot of guards behind her pulling in another rolling lab bed like theirs. Booker can't get a good look at the person on it, and his heart pounds wildly in his chest. <em>Please, not Nicky,</em> he thinks wildly. Not just because Joe will fucking kill him if it is; Nicky, free, is their best shot at getting out of here anytime soon.</p>
<p>It's not Nicky on the bed. Not Nile, either, thank God. The person being brought in is a stranger to Booker at first: a white woman, slender but leanly muscular, her dark hair shaved down to just a thin fuzz covering her scalp. Then she turns her head and looks right at him, and those piercing, ice-green eyes--</p>
<p>He knows her. He would know her even if it weren't for Joe's inarticulate yelp, for the inhuman <em>sound</em> that rips its way out of Quỳnh as though she's just been punched in the stomach. He's seen those furious eyes in his nightmares for two hundred years.</p>
<p>Andromache's hard gaze passes across them, from Booker to Quỳnh to Joe, almost expressionless. She lingers on Quỳnh for a heartbeat, but rests the longest on Joe. And then she starts to laugh.</p>
<p>It's an unsettling sound, to say the least, creaky and rasping as though she hasn't laughed in decades and might have forgotten how. From the reactions of the guards surrounding her, this might be the first noise they've ever heard her make.</p>
<p>Well, if so, they're about to get a hell of a shock, because when she's done laughing, she says, clearly: "Oh, wow, did <em>you</em> guys ever fuck up."</p>
<p>Booker blinks, but she's talking to her guards, not to them. She's speaking English; her accent is a little strange, unplaceable -- and he's kind of an expert at placing accents, at this point. There's something unfamiliar in the way she shapes the words, though the phrasing is perfectly contemporary. Like listening to Nicky speak Italian, Booker thinks all at once, or Joe speaking Arabic: just a touch archaic in her pronunciations, the slightest half-step off-kilter.</p>
<p>The guards lock her bed into place on the other side of Booker's. Most of them do their best to ignore her, but the scientist frowns. "What are you talking about?" she demands.</p>
<p>Andromache smiles at her, a lioness to a gazelle. "You missed one."</p>
<p>The scientist -- Booker thinks he heard someone address her as <em>Dr. Kozak</em>, earlier -- glances between the three of them, perplexed, before returning to Andromache. "What earthly difference could it make? Three, four, no matter. The woman is the leader, anyway."</p>
<p>"No, you don't understand. You split up Yusuf and Nicolò." There's something almost gleeful in Andromache's tone, a wicked gleam in those icy eyes. Her smile widens. "You're <em>fucked</em>."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>For the record, Andromache's look in this is basically Furiosa from Mad Max: Fury Road. If you were wondering.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>When they take her out of the sea, she fights them.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>(time loses all meaning.)</strong>
</p>
<p>When they take her out of the sea, she fights them. She screams and kicks and claws, and it's terrifying to her, how weak her arms feel, how atrophied her muscles. But rage lights a fire within her that has not been doused by leagues upon leagues of seawater above her coffin, and she will not be cowed by these strangers in strange garb speaking strange words. She will burn them all first.</p>
<p>They put her in a narrow, empty room and lock the door. She screams and continues to scream for a long time, until, exhausted, she falls asleep between one inhale and the next.</p>
<p>She dreams, then, for the first time since time stopped for her. She sees a sad-eyed man with a silver flask, and remembers the burn of liquor down her own throat. He moves in flashes: now on a city street that should be familiar but isn't quite; now in a strange carriage that purrs so smoothly along the road; now in a room with others, laughing and joking in languages that once tripped fluently off her own tongue but sound harsh and heavy and queer to her now.</p>
<p>She knows those other faces. They were beloved to her, before, each in its own unique way.</p>
<p>She wakes up sobbing, and her sobs transmute into screams again. It is so strange to breathe air and not water. The sudden absence of the sea is as awful now as its constant presence had been. What, then, is the difference?</p>
<p>An ancient memory stirs, unbidden. Quỳnh in the desert, those first long weeks together, the distant, dreamy expression in her beautiful dark eyes. How slowly she moved, as though underwater, as though a part of herself remained absent. Later, she would explain that she had been so lost in her own solitude that she had believed herself still dreaming.</p>
<p>That memory stirs some vestige of self-awareness. A part of Andromache is still in that underwater prison even now, perpetually drowning. Perhaps it will always be so. But now that she can hold that shrieking terror apart from herself, she can better acknowledge the world around her physical body. She stops screaming then. She has tired of it.</p>
<p><em>Quỳnh</em>. Once that name has returned to her, a flood follows. Her family. Quỳnh, best beloved from time immemorial, her constant companion, her dearest friend, her beating heart. And their younger brothers, Yusuf and Nicolò, as different from each other as day and night, yet irrevocably entwined themselves, halves of the same soul. They were stolen from her -- no, <em>she</em> was stolen from <em>them</em>--</p>
<p>She hates to frame it in that manner. To have been stolen, to have been lost, it reduces her, weakens her. Enfeebles her. She cannot bear it.</p>
<p>Andromache knows with bone-deep certainty that there are no gods, because surely they would have taken pity and <em>ended</em> her by now. She is so very, very old. She is so very, very tired.</p>
<p>Time passes. It never had much meaning to her, anyway. She was born before people counted time. There were days and there were nights; the moon waxed and waned. Seasons changed in predictable patterns. Babies grew to children grew to adults shrank to elders, if they were lucky, and returned to the earth eventually in any case. What use was specificity? What difference would it make?</p>
<p>Eventually she must seem quiet and docile enough for the strangers to reopen the door. She doesn't fight them. She hardly even notices them. She prefers to sleep, and dream, and remember better times.</p>
<p>People speak around her, over her. Rarely <em>to</em> her. She listens; almost unwillingly at first, but she can't help but listen. A part of her remains watchful and wary and observant, always, even though she tries to shove it to the corner of her mind and ignore it along with everything else.</p>
<p>But she listens. And she begins to comprehend.</p>
<p>They speak English. Some dialect of it, anyway. She doesn't recognize all the words and the accents are unfamiliar, but she understands more than she doesn't. She's always been very good at languages. She tucks it all away, absorbs it into her mind like a sponge, assesses it coolly from a distance. She doesn't say a single word of her own aloud.</p>
<p>They strap her to a cot and put her in a new room. Everything is bright and harsh. A woman addresses her directly, once. Andromache won't even meet her eyes, won't give any part of herself away. They've realized what she is. The woman pokes a needle into her arm and watches, wide-eyed, as the mark vanishes. Then she takes a tiny silver knife and makes a cut.</p>
<p>Andromache lunges then, breaks the straps around her thin wrists and nearly gets her hands around the woman's neck before there's a lot of shouting -- she files a couple of new curses away into that ever-expanding corner of her mind -- and men clamp her back down into the cot again. Another needle is stabbed into her neck and the world goes dark and quiet for a time.</p>
<p>She still counts that as a victory.</p>
<p>Her world now consists of two rooms, dividing time neatly into day and night. Day is for the laboratory, for being strapped to a cot and poked and prodded and cut into. Night is for the cell, a long, narrow gray room with a mattress on one end and facilities for bathing and relieving herself on the other. (Through forceful demonstrations by an exasperated female guard, she learns what a <em>shower</em> and <em>toilet</em> are and how to utilize them. Grudgingly, she admits to herself that the modern world has its perks.) Days are for going away inside her own head as much as possible, for observing as if from outside of her own body; nights are for pacing the length of the cell over and over, determined to keep fit in case she should ever have the opportunity to fight back, and when she can bear it no longer, for sleeping on the thin mattress and hoping to dream of her family.</p>
<p>There are three recurring faces in this new world that seem to matter. Not the guards -- those brutes are interchangeable. The first, and most immediately relevant, is the only woman: blonde hair, always wearing a sort of white jacket over her other clothing. She's referred to as <em>doctor</em>. She's the one who controls everything that is done to Andromache's body. None of it is pleasant. Her eyes light up with the kind of fanatical fervor that Andromache associates with the Spanish Inquisition, but the god this woman prays to is not of any pantheon Andromache could name. Science, medicine, research -- these words have never been frightening to her before. The doctor makes them so.</p>
<p>The second is presumably the woman's boss. A wealthy young man who speaks in grandiose terms about <em>profits</em>. He doesn't visit often, but everyone else makes an unholy fuss when he does. Andromache dislikes the boss nearly as much as the doctor.</p>
<p>The third is seen only infrequently, and only in the boss's presence. His face is the closest to <em>kind</em> that Andromache ever sees in this horrible place, which is what makes him memorable. His dark eyes are sad when they look at her, and he tries to address her directly once or twice before the boss or the doctor cuts him off. Sometimes he speaks with the boss in hushed tones, as though trying to convince him of something. The boss always dismisses him arrogantly. The kind man always looks discouraged and discomfited afterward. There is shame in his eyes when he glances back at her.</p>
<p><em>Good,</em> Andromache thinks. Someone ought to feel ashamed by this.</p>
<p>She keeps her own counsel and never answers any questions put to her, never speaks at all. The doctor clearly thinks she's feeble-minded, possibly incapable of speech entirely. Andromache does nothing to disabuse her of this notion. They all speak so freely around her, thinking her stupid. She learns a great deal.</p>
<p>It's always been obvious what they want from her. The secret to her immortality. The secret, of course, is that there is no secret. In her millennia of life, Andromache has never found any explanation for the why or how of their immortality. They simply <em>are</em>. Until they are not.</p>
<p>These people seek the answers out of her blood and tissue and bone and everything else that lies within. Well, good luck to them. Maybe they'll stumble across the answer and shock the world. More likely they won't, and Andromache will outlive them, like she always does. Or maybe they will succeed where those miserable priests failed and actually manage to kill her for good. Either way, Andromache will be free of them eventually, and she honestly doesn't care how it happens. After thousands upon thousands of relentless years, she's more than ready to rest.</p>
<p>When matters change, they spiral out very rapidly.</p>
<p>The first is a new dream. Andromache's dreams are the only worthwhile part of her continuing existence now. The glimpses of her family are precious to her beyond words. Even when all she sees is the newest immortal (<em>Booker</em>, she hears Quỳnh call him once, and tucks the name into her heart beside the others'); still, it's a connection she'd long thought lost to her. She relishes every moment.</p>
<p>And then she dreams of a knife slashing across her throat, a young woman's terrified eyes, the harsh desert heat baking into her skin, red blood thick and hot as it spills into cloth and sand.</p>
<p>They have a new sister. Andromache blinks awake with tears trickling down her cheeks. She revels in that dream for the rest of that day and night, ignoring the doctor entirely.</p>
<p>She dreams of the new girl once more after that: she's in a moving vehicle, chained and guarded, and then there's a burst of light and noise and the world flips upside down, gunfire and shouting and another brief death, and then the girl is on a road in a twilit forest looking up into Yusuf's warm brown eyes. Andromache's heart twists joyfully in her chest. Oh, she misses them.</p>
<p>But that dream heralds the second change. The doctor is cutting into her as usual -- Andromache barely deigns to notice the pain at this point -- but abruptly she stops. She removes the silver knife (<em>scalpel</em>; Andromache has learned this new word). She stares down at Andromache in surprise.</p>
<p>"What the hell?" she mutters. "Why isn't it healing?"</p>
<p>As much as Andromache hates to acknowledge the doctor or anything she's doing -- it feels like letting her score a point -- she glances down at her own collarbone, where the doctor had been cutting.</p>
<p>The skin is split in a long, thin line. It bleeds. It does not seal itself back together.</p>
<p>"What have you done?" the doctor demands of her. It's been a long time since she last made eye contact with Andromache. She looks...frightened. "What has changed?"</p>
<p>Andromache continues to bleed.</p>
<p>Slowly, she feels a smile stretch the corners of her lips. Not because it seems Death has finally taken an interest in her; but because it spites the doctor that it has. <em>What a perfect way to die,</em> she thinks giddily. <em>Oh, let me spit in your face at last.</em></p>
<p>Of course, it's just a cut, and no one dies of a cut. But it shakes the doctor to her core to stitch it back up again, to apply antiseptic and gauze. Her perfect specimen has become perfectly ordinary, and it is <em>driving her mad</em>. Andromache is absolutely delighted by this turn of events. She thinks Lykon would approve.</p>
<p>Her newfound mortality sparks chaos in her insular little world. The doctor runs many rounds of frantic tests, noticeably more humane than before; the boss appears and shouts a lot. The kind man is summoned as well, to be shouted out in his turn. "What about the others?" the boss demands of him. "Are they a sham as well, Copley?"</p>
<p>Copley -- she grudgingly supposes he's earned the right to a name -- just gazes at her, wide-eyed. "My God," he murmurs. "So it can come to an end." He shakes his head, turns back to the boss. "Are you going to release her, then? Into a facility better suited to care for her, at least? If she's not healing, she's no use to you anymore. I can recommend--"</p>
<p>"I don't need your recommendations," the boss says coldly. "You owe me a replacement."</p>
<p>Copley opens his mouth, as if to protest, but one of the security goons takes an ominous step forward and he shuts it again. On his way out, he gives Andromache one last agonized glance. There's something like determination in his bearing now. She's not sure whether that bodes well or ill.</p>
<p>The next day, they move her to another location. At least she can surmise as much. The doctor jabs a syringe into her neck that knocks her out. She drifts vaguely awake at some point, feeling nauseated, the ground moving beneath her like she's in a carriage, then slips back into unconsciousness. When she next opens her eyes, she's in another lab. She knew every inch of her strange prison before; this is somewhere new. Same doctor, though. Same endless tests. Similar secondary chamber with its mattress and toilet, though the tiled walls are white this time. So it makes little difference to Andromache.</p>
<p>Except then the better part of a day passes with no doctor at all. Andromache tries to sleep through it, but something in the tube stuck into her skin seems to be keeping her awake. She studies the new room for potential exits, and tugs experimentally at all her restraints. Now that she knows her own days on this earth are numbered, she doesn't particularly relish the prospect of never seeing the sky again. It might be time to develop an escape plan.</p>
<p>The door opens, and the doctor returns at last, accompanied by more than her usual complement of guards. Andromache supposes she's being moved again. Maybe she can get a bigger picture of where she's being held; that could come in useful.</p>
<p>Her cot is rolled down a wide, brightly lit corridor, then into a smaller box of a room that jolts with upward movement once the door closes. Fascinating. Then another corridor, virtually identical to the first, then metal doors being pushed open to another lab much like the one Andromache left. The primary difference is that <em>this</em> one already has its own resident captives.</p>
<p>It's well that Andromache has spent the past uncounted months training herself not to react to anything around her. Because the first glimpse of Quỳnh's face nearly undoes her completely.</p>
<p><em>Her</em> Quỳnh, bound and strapped to a bed just like her own, with the same horrible wires and needles attached to her beautiful skin. When she sees Andromache, she lets out an aborted, muffled cry as though her heart is breaking.</p>
<p>Andy can't look at her too long, can't let these people see how affected she is. She won't give them that ammunition. Instead she forces her gaze to drift blankly across the room. The man called Booker, on Quỳnh's right, his eyes wide and shocked as they meet Andromache's for the first time. She will miss sharing his dreams, she thinks. He may not be a happy man, but those dreams had been so rich with color and sound. Now his world is just as cramped and sterile and miserable as her own.</p>
<p>On Quỳnh's left is Yusuf, his hair a riot of curls, his warm eyes welling with tears. He strains at his bindings as though trying to reach out to her. He looks strangely young and <em>small</em>, here, when she remembers him filling up entire rooms with the joyous force of his personality. She looks past him automatically, searching for his other half, then stops. No one else is here. Just the three of them.</p>
<p>Could their captors really be this foolish?</p>
<p>For the first time in five hundred years, Andromache begins to laugh.</p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <strong>(now.)</strong>
</p>
<p>When Copley hears footsteps on his staircase, he assumes Merrick's goons must be here to finish him off. For a split second he considers the handgun he keeps in his bedside table, but there's no way he'll get to it in time. And, frankly, he's tired.</p>
<p>"If you're here to kill me, have the decency to get it over with," he says without turning around.</p>
<p>"Believe me, I would like nothing more," an accented male voice replies. "But you have information I need first."</p>
<p>Copley does turn at that. There are two people, a man and a woman, standing in the open doorway. They're dressed in the sort of nondescript, casual clothing that would make them instantly forgettable if one passed them in the street. Less forgettable, however, are the guns both have trained on him. Copley's never met either of them in person, but with a shock, he recognizes both.</p>
<p>"You know who I am, yes?" the man goes on. His pale eyes are chillingly cold.</p>
<p>"You go by Nicky," Copley breathes. "And...Corporal Freeman, I believe?"</p>
<p>The woman's mouth thins. "Just Nile is fine."</p>
<p>Copley hadn't known for sure what had happened to the missing Marine, had worried she'd been snatched up by one of Merrick's competitors instead. It's actually a relief to see her here now. Though he would prefer her not to have a gun in his face. But how on earth had the other immortals found her so quickly? Or has she been among them for centuries already herself, and he just hadn't known about her?</p>
<p>"Where are they?" Nicky demands. His hands are very steady on his weapon. <em>Sniper,</em> Copley reminds himself, feeling only slightly hysterical. "Where were they taken?"</p>
<p>Realization dawns. "You weren't at Hereford at all, were you? That's why they only captured three."</p>
<p>Nicky's jaw clenches. "So sorry to have deprived you of the full set. Do I need to repeat my question?" He raises the gun so that instead of pointing at Copley's chest, center mass, it's aimed directly for his head.</p>
<p>"No, please," Copley says hastily. He raises both hands placatingly, palms open, the universal gesture of surrender. "Merrick has them."</p>
<p>"Tell us something we didn't know," Nile mutters, rolling her eyes. She's apparently decided that her partner has him sufficiently covered, shouldering past Nicky to clear the rest of the space in the practiced movements of a soldier.</p>
<p>Copley shakes his head, keeping his focus on Nicky, the more immediate threat. "<em>I</em> hadn't known. I swear to you, I didn't know what Merrick had planned for your team at Hereford. All the intel I gave you, I genuinely believed to be accurate." He swallows hard. "I'd been to that facility, multiple times. I'd seen what they were doing there. That was why I wanted it stopped."</p>
<p>"Seen what?" Nicky asks, his tone harsh and mocking. "This oh-so-secretive project of Merrick's? The supposed test subjects?"</p>
<p>"Project Ozymandias is very real," Copley says quietly. "And there was only one test subject. Well, until last night. Now Merrick has three more."</p>
<p>Nicky's eyes grow even colder, if that's possible, and his hands tighten on the grip of his gun. But Nile calls to him then: "Nicky? I think maybe you should look at this."</p>
<p>She's standing in front of his bulletin board, eyes wide as she takes it in. Nicky gestures with his gun, and Copley follows the unspoken direction, taking a seat at his desk, hands still raised and visibly empty. Satisfied, Nicky steps up beside Nile and glances at the board. He has an excellent poker face, Copley is learning, betraying only the faintest hint of shock as he does a double-take at its contents.</p>
<p>"What is this?" he asks, tone very flat.</p>
<p>"The eternal warriors," Copley murmurs. At Nicky's glare, he clears his throat and sits up a bit straighter. "When my wife died, I devoted myself to your work. I learned your secret history, written in the margins, passed on by legend. What was dismissed as a myth, was in fact, immortality."</p>
<p>"You knew about us," Nicky says. For the first time, he sounds like he's struggling to keep his voice even. "You told <em>Merrick</em> about us."</p>
<p>Copley exhales shakily. "I thought...it could be the end of disease. The end of suffering."</p>
<p>"A fine justification. I've heard it so many times before." Nicky reaches out with a finger to trace the photograph of a soldier in a WWI-era uniform; Copley had identified that as Joe, holding the hands of two little girls. When he turns back to Copley, there's a certain desperation in his wide eyes, in the tension held in his jaw. "<em>Where are they?</em>"</p>
<p>"In a lab, being tested--" Copley cuts himself off at the expression on Nicky's face. "Tortured," he amends, feeling his own shame rising up like bile in his throat. "Merrick only cares about your immortality, not what you've all done with it."</p>
<p>"What do you mean, 'what you've done with it'?" Nile asks.</p>
<p>Copley starts to stand, then hesitates, looking to Nicky, who still very much has a gun pointed at him. Nicky's face doesn't change, but he lowers his weapon ever so slightly and nods. Accepting that tacit permission, Copley moves to join them at the bulletin board, pointing. "Montenegro. Nineteen-sixteen. Quỳnh saved a family of refugees, whose daughter would discover the technique for the early detection of diabetes." He gestures to another photo, this one of Nicky and Joe. "Here -- her grandson would save three hundred and seventeen people from the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia." Quỳnh and Booker: "This man prevented an accidental nuclear exchange in nineteen seventy-eight, and likely saved civilization as a result." He's talking too fast, overexcited; he shoves his hands into his cardigan pockets to keep them from trembling as he appeals directly to Nicky. "You and your friends save a life -- two or three generations later, we reap the benefits."</p>
<p>Nicky looks from him to the board, clearly shaken. It's Nile, again, who speaks. "All this -- you could put all this together, you could <em>see</em> it all, and you still gave them up?"</p>
<p>Copley flinches at the accusation in her tone. "It wasn't supposed to be like this! A few blood samples, DNA tests...what harm could that cause, against the untold good it might achieve? But when Merrick found another test subject--"</p>
<p>"You mentioned this," Nicky says, eyes narrowing. "You said you wanted it stopped. The intel you gave us--"</p>
<p>"She had been kept at the Hereford facility for six months," Copley explains, probably too quickly. "The blueprints, the security schedules -- that was all accurate. I was last there in person only two days earlier. It all came together so quickly -- how could I have anticipated that Merrick would move her before your team could arrive?" He shakes his head. "Merrick's chief of security, Keane, is ex-special forces. He's never trusted me, he must have suspected… I was too vocal in expressing my doubts in the whole process. That poor woman -- she was traumatized, she needed <em>care</em>, and they just kept cutting into her…"</p>
<p>"What woman?" Nicky asks urgently. "Who was the test subject?"</p>
<p>Copley shrugs helplessly. "She never gave her name. She never spoke a single word, that I know of. Merrick Pharmaceuticals has ties to many other industries. The U.S. Army, for example, contracts them for medical research -- that's how they got Ms. Freeman's name." He nods at Nile, who remains stony-faced. "Anyway. There was a research vessel in the North Atlantic that came across something unusual on the ocean floor, and...well, the long and short of it is, they pulled this woman out of the sea. She had drowned. And then came back to life, very dramatically, in front of half the crew, and then tried to attack them. Merrick caught wind, and since I'd already been in communication with him on the matter of, ah, immortality, he brought me in as well."</p>
<p>"Oh, my God," Nile says, ashen. "Nicky, you were right."</p>
<p>Nicky has gone rather pale himself. He still holds his gun in one hand, but it rests at his side, as if forgotten. "Her name is Andromache," he tells Copley. "She is our dearest friend. We have been searching for her for <em>centuries</em>. And Merrick has had her for <em>six months</em>?"</p>
<p>The very concept of centuries -- that this man, these people, have walked the earth for so long...even though he's compiled all this research, even though he <em>knows</em> it stretches back much farther than the photographs and documents he's managed to pick out… God, the sheer reality of it is staggering. "I didn't realize," Copley rasps out. "I thought...it doesn't matter what I thought. It was wrong. I came to understand that -- too late, perhaps. That's why I passed along the intel to your team, so that you could get her <em>out</em>. I didn't realize we had been set up." He shakes his head, staring blankly at the boards, at all that unfathomable history. "But why would the immortality end?"</p>
<p>"What?" Nicky says sharply.</p>
<p>"Your friend. Andromache. A few days ago, she simply...stopped healing. That's when Merrick brought me in again, to demand answers I didn't have. He threw my research in my face, insisted that I hold up my end of the bargain, that I bring him a <em>replacement</em>." Copley scrubs his hand across his face. "Of course he guessed I'd lead you straight to him. He called me this morning just to gloat about it."</p>
<p>Nicky grabs his shoulder and gives him a shake. "But Andromache, is she alive?"</p>
<p>"Nicky!" Nile protests.</p>
<p>"Yes," Copley says, exhaling hard. "Yes, she is. She's with the others." He steels himself, makes his decision. He meets Nicky's eyes levelly. "I can take you both there."</p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <strong>(several days earlier.)</strong>
</p>
<p>On Nile's third evening at the Luxembourg safehouse, Joe and Booker find some kind of sporting event on TV that they're actually getting worked up about. Nicky's significantly less invested, but entertains himself by placing increasingly ridiculous bets with the other two. Nile likes sports well enough -- she both ran track and played volleyball in high school -- but it's not her default entertainment, and she can't focus on whatever the game is. Eventually she gives up trying. But it's way too early to go to bed, and she's still too wired from her sparring matches before dinner to just settle in with a book. In her old life, she'd probably be listening to music while scrolling endlessly through social media right now. But her phone had been confiscated on the military flight to Landstuhl -- no big shocker there, seeing as they were planning to ship her off somewhere for creepy medical testing. She's not sure if she's currently considered AWOL or KIA or worse, but regardless, Quỳnh made it very clear that she's under communications blackout for the foreseeable future until all this shit blows over. If it ever does.</p>
<p>When she can't stand the restless energy thrumming under her skin any longer, she gets to her feet. "I'm gonna get some air or something," she says in response to Nicky's questioning look, jabbing her thumb in the vague direction of the back porch.</p>
<p>"I'll go with you," Quỳnh says unexpectedly, flipping her laptop closed. "If that's all right?"</p>
<p>Nile blinks. "Uh, sure."</p>
<p>Outside, the air is cool and pleasant, and the sensation of crawling out of her own skin lessens somewhat. Nile wishes she knew the woods well enough to wander around -- she's a runner, she wants to <em>move</em> -- but at least she doesn't feel so pent up anymore.</p>
<p>Quỳnh hovers by the porch railing. "I can leave you in peace, if you'd prefer. I just needed to get out of there for a while, too. I love Booker and the boys, of course, but sometimes they can be a bit...much." She offers Nile a slightly crooked smile. "Men in general, that is."</p>
<p>"Oh, God, I can't even imagine," Nile says with a shudder. "Being the only girl in the group for literal centuries. I mean, the army's very dude-heavy, but even in the Marines I had my squad, you know?"</p>
<p>"It is refreshing to have a different energy on the team," Quỳnh agrees. She tilts her head to one side as she considers Nile, almost hesitantly. "I thought I might take a walk down to the lake. Would you like to join me?"</p>
<p>They haven't really spent any time together one-on-one yet, apart from sparring, so: "Sure," Nile says. "That sounds nice."</p>
<p>Quỳnh leads the way into the trees, following some invisible trail she clearly knows very well, given how sure her steps are. It's still hovering at the edge of twilight, not quite full dark, and Nile's eyes adjust after a couple of minutes of stumbling around. Quỳnh makes no comment, but there's a glint in her eyes like laughter.</p>
<p>"You called them 'Booker and the boys,' just now," Nile remarks eventually, to break up the silence a little. "Booker doesn't count as one of the guys?"</p>
<p>Quỳnh does let out a huff of laughter at that. "One of the <em>guys</em>, certainly. But Joe and Nicky were 'the boys' for so long, well before Booker showed up. I suppose that's just how I still think of them."</p>
<p>"And Booker's separate from that." That does make a certain kind of sense. She thinks about Nicky and Joe, the way that even when they're on opposite sides of a room, they're always tilted toward each other somehow, always subtly attuned to the other's presence. "Well, obviously."</p>
<p>"Booker has always been...separate." Quỳnh's voice sounds distant. "Not entirely his fault, I suppose. It's just who he is."</p>
<p>"And what about you?" Nile surprises herself by asking. It's easier, somehow, in the darkness of the forest, when she can't really see Quỳnh's face. "I mean, what's your story? I know I've only known you people for like three days, but I've figured out that Booker's a high-functioning alcoholic who used to fight with Napoleon, and Joe and Nicky are pretty upfront about who <em>they</em> are, but you're just…I dunno." She shrugs, even though Quỳnh probably can't see it. "You're the boss. That's all I know."</p>
<p>"Maybe that's all I am anymore," Quỳnh murmurs. "The first time Booker called me that, it felt so strange. But then the boys picked it up, too, somehow."</p>
<p>She sounds so sad. It's weird. Nile feels like she ought to apologize for bringing it up. "I mean, it's not, like, sarcastic or anything. At least it always sounded like they meant it. They all seem to really respect you."</p>
<p>"I know." Quỳnh walks on in silence for a few long minutes, and Nile follows. When she speaks again, there's a hint of humor in her tone. "I hope you're not expecting me to tell you my life story. It would take a very long time, you realize."</p>
<p>Nile smiles a little at that. "No, yeah, I can imagine. And I don't mean to pry. It's just, if we're all stuck together for literally forever...can you blame me for being curious?"</p>
<p>"I suppose not." Another silence, then: "Ask what you like. I can't promise I'll answer, but I won't lie to you about anything, either."</p>
<p>Huh. Now that she's offering, Nile draws a complete blank. "Um, okay. Where did you grow up? I mean, before the whole immortality thing."</p>
<p>Quỳnh hums to herself for a moment. "A village on what is now the Vietnamese coast. It doesn't exist anymore, of course." She pauses, then asks, delicately: "And you?"</p>
<p>"Chicago. You ever been there?"</p>
<p>"A few times, yes. Last was during the Prohibition."</p>
<p>That was, what, a hundred years ago? Literally? "Wow. Okay. Fight any gangsters? Al Capone?"</p>
<p>It's hard to tell in the deepening shadows, but Nile's pretty sure she glimpses her teeth flash in a grin. "We might have done. It's not quite so exciting there these days, though, is it?"</p>
<p>"Not so exciting, maybe, but not always so great, either. Me and my brother, growing up on the South Side, especially after our dad died...a million different ways we could have went left." Nile shoves her hands deep in the pockets of her hoodie, blinking back unexpected tears. "But my mom, she fought for us. Never backed down. Never let us back down either."</p>
<p>"That must have been difficult," Quỳnh says quietly. "What happened to your father?"</p>
<p>"He was a Marine, like me. Killed in action when I was eleven."</p>
<p>Quỳnh clasps her shoulder briefly, then releases it. "You come from warriors."</p>
<p>She's not only referring to Nile's dad. It's not how Nile ever thought of it, exactly, but… "Yeah. I do."</p>
<p>"My parents were fishermen," Quỳnh says, as if in exchange. "Well, most of my village was. The sea was everything to us."</p>
<p>They step out of the treeline, then, all at once, emerging onto a gentle slope of grasses under the velvety night sky. Water stretches out below them, glittering in the moonlight. Quỳnh had called it a lake, before, but it looks more like a river to Nile, stretching out in either direction.</p>
<p>"Wow," Nile breathes. "It's really beautiful here."</p>
<p>Quỳnh nods agreement and slips down to sit cross-legged in the grass. Her every movement is fluid and elegant, Nile's noticed, as though her millennia of practice in absolutely everything have granted her an effortless grace. Joe moves a bit like that too, especially in a fight, though he's heavier on his feet, more abrupt in action; Nicky, in contrast, is extremely economical in everything he does, never expending an ounce more effort than required, which is its own sort of elegance. Booker tends to look clumsy by comparison, but he's not, really; he's just choppier, rougher around the edges. <em>Younger</em>, Nile realizes, like a colt, long-legged and awkward with it. It's weird to think of him as the baby of the group, when he looks to be in his early forties, compared to Joe and Nicky's thirty-something and Quỳnh's agelessness.</p>
<p>Nile wonders how childlike <em>she</em> must seem to all of them, as she plops gracelessly down beside Quỳnh. Her next question is kinda dumb, but, well, Quỳnh did say she could ask anything. "How old were you? When you died the first time, I mean, I know you don't like talking about how old you actually are--"</p>
<p>"Honestly, I've just never tried to do the math," Quỳnh says, and if it's not the whole truth, Nile did believe her when she'd promised not to lie. "I lost track early on, and it never seemed important. And I don't believe in looking back. It's too easy to lose oneself that way." She hugs herself, looking out at the water. "I don't remember my exact age when I died. Birthday parties weren't exactly a thing. But...around forty years, perhaps? That feels about right to me."</p>
<p>"Well, you look damn good for forty," Nile tells her. "Or, you know, three thousand and forty, whatever." Quỳnh laughs at that, the sound bright and sparkling, and it warms something in Nile's chest to have made the boss laugh. "Man, it's weird to think about, though, you know? I'm twenty-six. My body is gonna be twenty-six, <em>forever</em>. I mean, most people would kill to look this good for the rest of their lives, right? But the thought of being a crotchety old lady someday, still stuck in the body of a twenty-something…"</p>
<p>Quỳnh regards her thoughtfully. "It's not quite like that. Yes, we grow ancient in our own ways, with the sheer weight of those years of experience. But…" She shrugs. "In another sense, we <em>don't</em> age. Not just in appearance; I mean that our bodies are constantly healing, rejuvenating themselves. It's not that you will always <em>appear</em> to be twenty-six; in a very real way, your body and your mind remain twenty-six. Our brains do not decay with senility. We still learn and adapt with the ease we had at our first deaths. You don't realize," she goes on, somewhat conspiratorially, "how lucky we are that the boys died at the ages they did, and not as younger men. Can you imagine being stuck with twenty-year-old male hormones for the rest of eternity?"</p>
<p>This is something Nile genuinely had not considered, and it is absolutely horrifying. "Oh, my God. They would just be fucking <em>all the time</em>."</p>
<p>"<em>All</em> the time," Quỳnh agrees, world-weary. "You don't even know. Lykon used to--" She cuts herself off abruptly, stiffening.</p>
<p>Nile knows she shouldn't push. She shouldn't. They've been having such a nice night, surprisingly so, and she should not press her luck. But she can't help it. "Lykon?"</p>
<p>Quỳnh is quiet long enough that Nile thinks she might not say anything further. But eventually, she shakes her head, as if to clear it, and takes a deep breath. "He was...one of us, once. A very long time ago."</p>
<p>Not the woman in Nile's nightmares, then. Apparently there's another ghost in Quỳnh's attic. Nile remembers Booker's warning, that first night, and deliberately ignores it. "What happened to him?" she asks, as gently as she can manage.</p>
<p>"This is not how I meant to tell you," Quỳnh mutters, more to herself than to Nile. "But it is important to know." She lifts her head to meet Nile's eyes directly. "The immortality does not actually last forever. All things that live must die. One day your wounds just don’t heal up anymore. We don’t know when or why. It is just...your time, at long last." She looks back out at the water, her gaze distant. "The not knowing is what keeps us human, I think. What keeps us from becoming monsters. We may seem to have all the time in the world, and yet we must live as if every moment is precious, because it is."</p>
<p>She sounds so very old and sad, in that moment, and Nile reaches out almost without realizing it. She rests her hand on Quỳnh's arm, and Quỳnh permits it. After a long while, she briefly covers Nile's hand with her own. Her palm is lightly calloused and cool to the touch. Then, without speaking, Quỳnh gets to her feet.</p>
<p>Nile follows her back to the house without another word.</p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <strong>(now.)</strong>
</p>
<p>Copley parks the car in front of one of the many ugly new skyscrapers that have sprouted like overgrown weeds in this part of London, jutting awkwardly upward between the old churches and courthouses. Nicky is not terribly fond of most modern architecture.</p>
<p>It's early evening by now, though that means they still likely have about an hour of daylight left, this late in the spring. It also must be a weekend, he realizes, given the relative emptiness of this business district. Good. The fewer casual employees they might encounter, the better. Nicky prefers to only hurt people who intend to hurt him right back.</p>
<p>They go in through a discreet side entrance using a swipe of Copley's card. It takes them into what looks like a service entrance, or possibly a storage area. They stop in front of the elevator to assess. "There’s no cameras here," Copley remarks when he sees them both looking. "That’s how he gets people in and out unseen. He has a private lab on the fifteenth floor."</p>
<p>"How many shooters onsite?" Nile asks, while Nicky efficiently unpacks his broadsword and their guns from his duffel bag. He also has a smaller backpack containing his flak vest and ammo, along with a few other useful items.</p>
<p>"At least thirty."</p>
<p>Nicky frowns as he pulls on his flak vest. "How many of those are likely to be guarding the lab, to start with?"</p>
<p>"With <em>your</em> friends there? Probably half of them," Copley says wryly. "Likely none inside the lab itself -- Dr. Kozak doesn't like people breathing down her neck while she works -- but a handful just outside the door, plus patrols along the perimeter of the floor."</p>
<p>"Not ideal, but I guess we just power on through them," Nile says. That's kind of the extent of their plan at the moment. There are too many unknown variables for a more refined strategy.</p>
<p>"It would be nice if we could pull their focus elsewhere," Nicky thinks aloud. "At least until we regroup with the others."</p>
<p><em>Regroup</em>, as though they have simply been doing reconnaissance and planned to reconvene at a particular time and place. As though his Joe is not currently strapped down to a table somewhere being cut into. As though Andromache has merely been away on vacation for a few centuries.</p>
<p>If he permits himself to dwell on the full ramifications of their situation, he will break down right here in this hallway, and that will not help anyone. So he lets his mind go cold and distant instead, ignores the staccato pace of his own heartbeat, focuses on the task at hand. Buckles his swordbelt. Checks that his rifle is fully loaded. Breathes in and out.</p>
<p>Copley folds his arms across his chest pensively. "I can create a diversion--"</p>
<p>"<em>No</em>," Nile and Nicky both say in unison. Nicky smiles inwardly and lets her take it from there. "You got us here," Nile goes on, adamant. "That's enough. Getting yourself killed won't help anyone." </p>
<p>He has a point, though. Nicky closes his eyes briefly to think it through. "Copley. Where is Merrick himself most likely to be?"</p>
<p>Copley still looks mutinous, but not quite willing to take on two immortal soldiers in an argument. "If he's not in the lab? Up in the penthouse. That's also where his security would lock him down in the event of an intruder."</p>
<p>"Does this elevator go there?"</p>
<p>"No, this is just one of the service lifts. There's a private executive elevator for Merrick that goes directly to the penthouse." He hesitates, searching Nicky's face. Nicky waits him out patiently. "If you take this one to the top floor, go left and follow that hall all the way down. That leads you to the public-facing entrance. But my card access won't get you inside the penthouse itself, and the security control room is right there as well. It will be heavily guarded."</p>
<p>Nicky looks him directly in the eye. "Good."</p>
<p>"Nicky," Nile says warningly. "The plan was to stick together."</p>
<p>"The plan was to break out our friends," Nicky counters. "Not to bring an entire army down upon their heads while they are still incapacitated."</p>
<p>"We're more likely to get caught if we're separated!"</p>
<p>"Only one of us, though." Nicky's mouth twitches. "And I am not so easily caught, though they are welcome to try." When she opens her mouth to protest again, he says, "Nile, this will buy you time. Please trust me."</p>
<p>After a long moment, while Copley fidgets behind them, Nile sighs and shrugs on the backpack. "What the hell am I supposed to tell them when I show up without you?"</p>
<p>Nicky gives her the faintest of smiles. "Remind them of Havana in '58. And that I'll meet you all upstairs." He presses the call button and pulls up his hood. "Once I'm in the elevator, wait here for five minutes, then go find the lab."</p>
<p>She nods, then tugs him into a hug. It's a bit awkward, what with all the weaponry, and the hilt of his sword must be digging into her side, but he squeezes her gently and presses a light kiss to the top of her head. "Find them for me," he murmurs. "I will see you again shortly."</p>
<p>"Yeah, you better." She releases him only when the elevator arrives. He looks past her to Copley, exchanging a terse nod, and then steps inside. He has faith that Nile will send him packing if he makes any further attempts to accompany her.</p>
<p>As the elevator ascends, he closes his eyes and sends up a formless prayer that his family is still whole, that they know he is coming for them. Every atom in his body yearns desperately for Joe, to see him, to touch him, to reassure himself that he is well. It takes all his centuries of carefully practiced self-restraint to continue on upward past the fifteenth floor, knowing that the other half of his soul is there waiting for him. But this is how Nicky will best be able to help him, and all of them: by buying them time to escape. And by removing as many obstacles from their path as possible in the process.</p>
<p>He does not say any prayers for the souls of those who now stand between him and his beloved. Perhaps God will show them mercy; such is His right.</p>
<p>Nicky certainly won't.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Joe's head is still spinning. He's honestly not sure whether that's due to lingering remnants of whatever drug he was injected with earlier, or a simply a reasonable reaction to Andromache's dramatic reappearance in their lives. But the sense of coming rather untethered from reality is now being compounded by two new facts they all learn in rapid succession.</p>
<p>The first is that apparently Andromache and Booker have the same blood type. Not much of a revelation in itself; there aren't many different blood types all told, they're all still technically human, it's not statistically unlikely that two of them would happen to be a match. The real kicker here is why that random factoid matters: Dr. Kozak has decided to try giving Andromache a blood transfusion using Booker's blood.</p>
<p>Which leads them to the second and far more important thing they've all learned today: she's experimenting with this transfusion in an attempt to restore Andy's immortality.</p>
<p>Andromache the Scythian is, as of a few days ago, fully mortal.</p>
<p>The amount of emotional whiplash Joe has experienced in the past hour or so is just...well, he would like to file a strongly worded letter with someone upstairs, if you please. And that doesn't even scratch the surface of what Quỳnh is going through right now. He can't begin to imagine. She has gone utterly still and silent, her head turned away from him so that she can keep her eyes on Andromache, her hands clenched into white-knuckled fists at her sides, tension in every line of her slender body. A part of Joe is glad he can't see her face. His heart is breaking enough for her already.</p>
<p>He joins her in watching Andromache instead, his insides twisting up into knots at the very sight of her after nearly five hundred years. Gone is her long, dark hair -- though in a way, the buzz cut complements the sharp angles of her face, makes her pale green eyes even more luminous. She's strikingly beautiful, like cut glass, always. And the murder in those eyes when she regards Dr. Kozak is a balm to Joe's soul. Whatever the ocean may have washed away, whatever additional horrors she has endured since, some core truth of their Andy remains. </p>
<p>Now they simply must ensure that bright flame of her spirit remains kindled.</p>
<p>Dr. Kozak is still prepping for the procedure when there's a rapid burst of noise from somewhere beyond the confines of this lab. Muffled though it may be by the thick walls, the sound of gunfire is unmistakable. The doctor gives a start, head popping up in confusion. On the gurney between Andromache and Quỳnh, Booker jerks reflexively, tugging experimentally on his restraints; Quỳnh actually tears her gaze away from her beloved to stare at the door, as though burning through it with her mind. Andromache bares her teeth in a feral grin, and Joe remembers what she'd told the guards, earlier: <em>Oh, wow, did you guys ever fuck up</em>.</p>
<p>Joe's heart kicks against his ribcage in sweet anticipation. The door bursts open. </p>
<p>He blinks. "Nile?"</p>
<p>"Behind you!" Booker shouts, and Nile turns and quickly double-taps the guard before shoving the heavy door back shut again. When Dr. Kozak leaps up, with terror in her eyes but a syringe in hand, Nile knocks her out quickly with a punch and then comes to an abrupt stop in front of the four of them.</p>
<p>"Hey, guys," she says breathlessly. She starts with Quỳnh, unbuckling her restraints with only the faintest tremor in her capable hands. "Two shooters at the door, but I'm guessing the word's gone out by now and we'll have more coming."</p>
<p>The instant Quỳnh is free, she's moving for Andromache, practically stumbling over the gurney between them. As an afterthought, she reaches out and undoes one of Booker's arm restraints, and he chuckles as he gets to work on freeing himself. Nile just moves on to Joe.</p>
<p>It's been a long and trying day of physical torture and emotional upheaval, and Joe is pretty much down to one last functional brain cell ricocheting around his skull, so he feels no embarrassment whatsoever that the only words he can string together are: "Where's Nicky?"</p>
<p>Nile won't meet his eyes as she moves on to the restraints at his ankles. "Causing a diversion," she says. "He said to remind you about Havana in '58."</p>
<p>Joe freezes in the process of pulling the sensors off his chest. His head fills with static, like white noise, as his mind simply blanks out for a second.</p>
<p>That's about when the door slams open and two more guards appear in the doorway; Nile finishes them off with headshots before they get their own rifles out, then hustles to kick the door shut again.</p>
<p>"Shit," Booker says. He appears in Joe's line of sight, tossing something soft into his lap. "Come on, Joe, we gotta move."</p>
<p>It's Joe's own shirt. Joe pulls it over his head mechanically, gets to his feet.</p>
<p>Nile's brow furrows. "What happened in Havana in '58?"</p>
<p>"Revolution," Booker says shortly. "We all got separated. Nicky got pinned by a company of Batista's soldiers--" He cuts himself off to clap Joe's shoulder. "He was fine. He'll <em>be</em> fine. Let's go help him, yeah?"</p>
<p>He pushes a gun into Joe's hand, and Joe accepts it numbly. The world is coming back into focus. Nile's passing out weapons like candy now, and Joe recognizes them from their cache in the South Downs. There was apparently also a fresh set of clothing in her backpack, which Quỳnh is helping Andromache into -- smart, since Andy had nothing but a hospital gown. </p>
<p><em>Nicky,</em> Joe thinks, the name echoing in every heartbeat. Of course Nicky would bring a change of clothes. But how could they have known…?</p>
<p>He looks at Andromache, now fully clothed and shoving her feet into a pair of sneakers with a scowl, then at Nile, who did not seem at all surprised to see her. Then at Booker, still hovering awkwardly in front of him.</p>
<p>"When did the dreams change?" Joe asks him, his own voice sounding strange in his ears. "Sebastien. When did you stop dreaming of her underwater?"</p>
<p>"I didn't," Booker says roughly. "Still had those dreams, too. But the lab nightmares started about six months ago." He grips Joe's shoulder again, desperately. "I didn't realize. I <em>swear</em> to you, it never even occurred to me as a possibility until they brought her in here today. I thought my subconscious was just scrambling things up."</p>
<p>"We'll discuss it later." Quỳnh joins them, checking the clip of her pistol before clicking it briskly back into place. The faintest sheen of wetness on her cheeks is the only sign of her emotional state. She's retreated into cold efficiency, the armor she uses to shield herself from the rest of the world. She never used to so gird herself before they lost Andromache. But it's impossible to tell if Andy, at her side, notices the difference. Her own gaze is distant and icy. "Nicky bought us time," Quỳnh goes on. "Let's not squander it."</p>
<p>Nile looks uncertainly between them. "Should we split up? We should get, um, Andromache to safety--"</p>
<p>Quỳnh snorts, a glimmer of her true self shining through for a moment, as Andy gives Nile a level stare. "We haven't met," Andy says, dry as dust. "So I'll give you a pass this time." She strides forward to where Dr. Kozak is starting to stir, in front of the doors, and looks down at the scientist impassively. Then she selects a scalpel from the nearby tray of instruments and swiftly, efficiently slits Kozak's throat.</p>
<p>Nile lets out a strangled noise of protest, and Joe can understand where she's coming from, but at the same time...six months. That woman has been torturing Andromache for six months. Really, it was more merciful a death than Joe himself might have managed, and he's only been here for a day.</p>
<p>"She would have never stopped coming after us," Andromache tells Nile emotionlessly. "Neither will her boss. We need to stop him here and now."</p>
<p>"Assuming we can find him," Quỳnh adds, eyes narrowing in thought.</p>
<p>Nile shakes her head, but more to clear it than in denial. "Merrick. Right. We think -- he should be up in the penthouse." More softly, she adds, "That's where Nicky was headed."</p>
<p>Joe is the first one out the door.</p>
<p>Their usual battle formation has been shot all to hell. Nicky's missing, Nile's new, and Andromache, already pushing her way to the front as though the past five hundred years never happened, is <em>mortal</em> and needs to be protected. Not to mention five centuries out of date when it comes to firearms, though she's weighing the pistol in her hands consideringly. Luckily, after skirting around the three bodies outside the doors, they encounter no one else as they make their way through the labyrinthine laboratory complex. It's kind of eerie, actually.</p>
<p>"Shouldn't they have figured out what's happening here by now?" Nile asks plaintively, flinching at every corner they turn without meeting resistance. "I know there are cameras…"</p>
<p>Joe can't find it in himself to manage a smile. "Nicky's very good at diversions." No matter how many times he might get himself killed in the process.</p>
<p>Eventually Andromache must tire of pussyfooting around. She's never been the most patient of women, and this is likely her first taste of freedom in five hundred years. Joe can hardly blame her for it. "Enough of this shit," she mutters, pushing away from the rest of the team and shoving her unfamiliar pistol into a startled Booker's hands. Joe spots the fire axe in its case on the wall a moment later. Andromache grabs it and twirls it between her hands, testing its weight, then strides purposefully down the hallway.</p>
<p>"Fuck," Quỳnh says, and darts after her. The rest of them have no choice but to follow.</p>
<p>Andromache does find a couple of guards around the next corner. Only a single gunshot rings out, followed by the distinctive sounds of an axe singing through the air and then meeting its targets. By the time they round the turn, the guards have been thoroughly dispatched and Andy rejoins them with a satisfied gleam in her eyes.</p>
<p>They've reached an elevator bank at this point, as good a place as any to pause and reassess. There's no way they can just step out of the elevator at the penthouse and expect to get to Merrick. Which, of course, must have been what Nicky had done, Joe realizes with a sinking feeling. Except Nicky wouldn't have planned to actually go after Merrick. Just to make as big of a scene as possible, for as long as he could.</p>
<p>"What are you thinking, boss?" Booker asks Quỳnh. "Oslo, '67?"</p>
<p>Quỳnh hums pensively. "Intel's too sketchy. What about--"</p>
<p>The elevator dings unexpectedly. They all jump and turn to face it together, weapons trained on the doors, which open on absolute chaos.</p>
<p>What Joe can see of the interior of the elevator is liberally splashed with red. Two bodies tumble out in the black tactical gear of Merrick's security forces, but others remain caught in a writhing, faceless tangle of too-cramped combat, not enough space in the elevator for any of the other guards to effectively bring up their assault rifles. Even if they could, they would be as likely to shoot their comrades as the lone assailant struggling at the center of the knot.</p>
<p>Nicky's broadsword is impaled in one man's stomach. He uses it as leverage to literally kick another guard out the open doors, momentarily opening a path for himself, and yanks the sword free as he staggers clear of the elevator, gasping for breath. He whirls directly into another swing of the sword in order to finish off the guard he just kicked out ahead of him, then lifts his head to see his family all standing there, still frozen in surprise. All of perhaps five seconds have passed since the elevator doors dinged open. Nicky's eyes seek out Joe's immediately, instinctively, and a smile flickers across his face, just for a moment.</p>
<p>And then one of the remaining guards in the elevator brings up his rifle and shoots Nicky directly in the back of his head. The light in those luminous eyes goes out at once, a candle snuffed out, and Nicky crumples to the ground. </p>
<p>Joe sees red.</p>
<p>He's dimly aware of Nile's wordless yell, of the ringing echoes of three different guns firing more or less in unison behind him. He's shooting, too, shot after shot into the cluster of faceless men now spilling out of the elevator until the trigger clicks on an empty chamber, and then he drops the pistol and reaches down to retrieve the sword that has fallen at Nicky's side.</p>
<p>Over their centuries together, of course they've tried out nearly every type of weapon imaginable, but Joe knows Nicky's broadsword nearly as well as his own saif. It's heavier, more cumbersome, requiring a two-handed grip; Joe will never match Nicky's fluid elegance with his favored weapon, but he certainly knows how to wield it.</p>
<p>By the time the now-empty elevator's doors ding shut again, all the guards are dead.</p>
<p>Joe stands in a circle of bodies for a few long moments, panting heavily. The muscles in his arms ache from his exertions; they'll heal soon enough. His legs feel shaky. He leans on the tall sword like a cane as he steps gingerly away from the men he just killed.</p>
<p>When he turns, Nile is kneeling at Nicky's side, helping him to sit up. Joe has to squeeze his eyes shut against the indescribable rush of relief and gratitude, breathing into it until he can be steady again.</p>
<p>"Joe," Nicky calls, and Joe opens his eyes.</p>
<p>Nicky has managed to stagger to his feet, gently shaking off Nile's assistance. His clothing is dark with bloodstains, and there are spatters of it across his face and hands as well. Joe can't tell how much of it is Nicky's own. They never can, really. It doesn't matter. Nicky takes two steps toward him, and then he's close enough that Joe can grab the front of his vest and reel him in the rest of the way, letting go of the sword hilt so that he can cup the back of Nicky's neck and kiss him, hard. There's a clatter as the sword falls to the floor. Nicky can chide him for it later.</p>
<p>Nicky's hands come to rest at Joe's hips, clutching on desperately as his mouth opens to Joe's, his kiss warm and fervent. "I'm here," Nicky murmurs against his lips. "<em>You're</em> here, Joe, thank God, I'm so sorry it took me so long--"</p>
<p>"You made me remember <em>Havana</em>," Joe scolds him, tightening his grip. "I may never forgive <em>that</em>."</p>
<p>Nicky chuckles wetly. "It was the closest analogy I could think of. I came back to you, didn't I?"</p>
<p>"I never doubted you." Joe kisses him again, gentler this time, thumbing soft circles against the nape of Nicky's neck.</p>
<p>They both know they can't linger like this, much as Joe would like to lose himself in Nicky and let the rest of the world fuck right off; their team is waiting on them, and there is still unfinished business with Merrick. Without needing to discuss it, they pull apart and turn back to the others. Nicky bends down to retrieve and sheathe his sword.</p>
<p>"Well," Andy drawls. She's tossing her new axe lightly from hand to hand. "Some things clearly haven't changed."</p>
<p>Nicky straightens and grins at her. A <em>real</em> grin, wide and boyish and unselfconscious, of the sort he so rarely bestows. The whole world feels brighter for it. Joe's heart swells unbearably in his chest.</p>
<p>"So," Quỳnh says briskly, as though their earlier discussion had never been interrupted. "Merrick, penthouse, plan. I'm thinking São Paulo, '34."</p>
<hr/>
<p>Despite Andromache's obvious instinct toward command, she permits Nile to take the lead as they make their way up the stairwell, with Booker bringing up the rear so that she's got an immortal shield on both sides. Nile's still not entirely sure what to make of her. And frankly, she's shocked that Quỳnh was willing to be parted from her at all, given how protective she'd been in the lab. But maybe that's part and parcel of loving a woman of Andromache's indomitable will: accepting that she's gonna do her own thing whether you like it or not.</p>
<p>Whatever happened in São Paulo in 1834, clearly Quỳnh had played a central role, and that means she's split off with Joe and Nicky to, like, scale the outer walls of the building with parkour or some shit, while Nile, Booker, and Andromache take the less exciting approach.</p>
<p>At least, Nile assumes it's less exciting, until they emerge from the stairwell into a scene of utter carnage.</p>
<p>"What the <em>fuck</em>," Nile whispers fervently, trying not to be sick.</p>
<p>Andromache's lips twitch. There's still a bit of madness glinting in her green eyes, Nile thinks. "Nicolò," she says in an approving tone.</p>
<p>"Nicky," Booker agrees gruffly. He claps Nile on the back. "He cleared our path. These are all bad guys we would have to fight through now, otherwise."</p>
<p>Nile swallows hard and forces herself to keep moving forward. When they reach the door to the penthouse suite, she gestures and the three of them take up positions on either side of it, Booker opposite her and Andromache. She checks her weapon reflexively; this is one she'd taken off a body downstairs.</p>
<p>"Wait for the signal," Booker tells them.</p>
<p>Nile rolls her eyes in spite of herself. "What does that even mean?"</p>
<p>"You'll know it when it comes."</p>
<p>Andromache huffs out a laugh. When they both look at her curiously, she gives them a razor-edged smile. "Go big or go home," she says. "I taught Quỳnh that."</p>
<p>"Oh, so <em>you're</em> the one I have to thank for the past two centuries of madness," Booker grumbles.</p>
<p>Nile regards Andromache, then the crumpled bodies of the guards littering the hallway. A thought occurs. She scoots over to the nearest body and starts working at the velcro on his kevlar vest. "This is bulletproof -- it's armor," she explains for Andromache's benefit. "If you can't heal anymore…"</p>
<p>"Leave it," Andromache says. "If it's my time, I'm ready."</p>
<p>"Andromache--"</p>
<p>This time, the older woman's smile seems more genuine. "My friends call me Andy."</p>
<p>Unexpected warmth blooms deep within Nile's chest, and she meets Andy's eyes, startled. She thinks maybe she's starting to understand what Nicky had tried to explain to her, back in the cottage: why they would follow this woman anywhere. "Andy. Listen. I know you've been kind of...out of things, for a long while, and that Quỳnh tried to give you a gun earlier anyway--"</p>
<p>"I know how firearms work," Andy says, amused. "Even the Ottoman army had them by the 15th century, and believe me, I fought the fucking Ottomans."</p>
<p>"I'm guessing the Ottomans didn't have machine guns, though."</p>
<p>Andy sighs. "Technology improves. Details change. Basic principles remain the same. I know what happens if I get shot, kid. I'm telling you not to worry about it."</p>
<p>Nile glances to Booker, who just shrugs helplessly. They're both babies next to Andromache the Scythian. Who the hell are they to tell her how to live her life?</p>
<p>Anyway, Booker was right about one thing: Nile definitely recognizes the signal when it comes.</p>
<p>Afterward, her memories of most of that final fight will feel like a blur to Nile, even though in the moment it all unfolds with exquisite clarity and focus. It's like her muscle memory just takes over, hundreds of hours of basic and combat training overruling any conscious thought. Kick the door in. Move. Select target, aim, shoot. Repeat as needed. Booker hands her a Beretta just as her first clip is emptied; she discards the old rifle and keeps moving. She covers Andy as much as possible, takes a bullet to the shoulder and a couple to the gut; they burn white-hot for an instant, then only throb when she moves wrong, and finally fade into nothingness within moments. Her wrists ache with the recoil of every shot, muscles torn and healing and then pulled again. The floor is covered with sharp shards, an entire plate glass window blown out, Quỳnh fighting like a viper in the midst of it, whirling and lashing out with knives in both hands -- where the hell did she even get those? She has slivers of glass in her long black hair. She must have come in through that window.</p>
<p>And then, abruptly, it's done. An eerie quiet settles over the room for a moment as they all just breathe and regard each other. Andy wanders over to the blown-out window and leans heavily against the frame, blood-spattered and exhausted from what's probably the first real physical exertion she's had in centuries, and Quỳnh follows as though pulled by an invisible tether. </p>
<p>The lull is broken by Nicky's shout, somewhere around a corner -- "The elevator is going down! Merrick is getting away!" -- and Booker immediately grabs a rifle from a dead guard and runs to join him and Joe.</p>
<p>Nile hesitates, uncertain of her role in this, wondering if she should follow. She looks automatically to Quỳnh for guidance, but Quỳnh doesn't even seem to have noticed. She's kneeling in the broken glass at Andy's feet and gazing up at her with tears streaming down her cheeks. Andy rests her hand atop Quỳnh's head like a benediction. The open sky behind them is a deepening blue as evening falls. They look like some kind of Renaissance painting, Nile thinks, awed.</p>
<p>She doesn't want to interrupt what is obviously a very private moment, but she also doesn't want to stray too far, just in case. The penthouse layout is on an open plan, so she just steps into the next room over and sinks down into a conference chair until she can stop shaking for a minute. </p>
<p>Which is why Merrick probably doesn't even notice her when he reenters the scene, gun pointed right at Andy, a sword with a curved blade held loosely in his other hand. Joe's, Nile realizes abruptly, recognizing it from their sword fighting lessons in Luxembourg; Merrick's goons would have taken all of their weapons when they captured the team at Hereford. They must have passed the more interesting items along to Merrick himself.</p>
<p>"You selfish little bitch," he spits. Quỳnh is on her feet in an instant, shielding Andy with her own body, but at this range, he can't miss. "I will kill her!"</p>
<p>Merrick keeps talking. Nile has stopped listening. She has no weapon at hand, and as soon as she makes a move to retrieve one, he'll know she's here. It's frankly miraculous that he hasn't noticed her yet.</p>
<p>But if he's shooting at her, it means he won't be able to shoot Andy. Might as well make it count.</p>
<p>Nile takes a deep breath, feet braced, and then lunges into action with a yell. Just to ensure he's good and distracted.</p>
<p>She feels two bullets hit her chest and doesn't even slow the fuck down until she slams into Merrick with maximum impact and they both hurtle out the broken window.</p>
<p><em>Huh</em>, she thinks to herself, with startling clarity. <em>Falling feels like flying.</em></p>
<p>Landing hurts like hell, of course, but only for an instant. Then blessed darkness takes her.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>In which they figure out what <em>after</em> will look like.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This has been a fun alternate reality to play around with. Thanks for coming along for the ride! And huge thanks again to my betas for helping to make it better.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>(now, still.)</strong>
</p>
<p>It's fully dark by the time they reach the little cottage in the South Downs. Getting out of London had been a pain in the ass: six adults in various stages of exhaustion and phantom injuries were not meant to cram into a normal sedan, but they were too obviously blood-spattered to do anything about it until they got out of the city. Copley met them in an empty industrial carpark with a new vehicle -- a shabby-looking SUV, but at least they all fit in it more comfortably, and it doesn't draw attention on the roads.</p>
<p>Booker drives, mostly by process of elimination. He's only been to the cottage two or three times over the past century, though, so Joe reluctantly called shotgun in order to provide directions. Booker's surprised that Nicky was willing to let him remain out of reach for the hour or so of the drive. Though when he glances in the rearview mirror, he can see that Nicky is slumped forward with his head resting on the back of Joe's seat, his hand clasped in Joe's. Nile, in the middle, is curled up against Nicky's side, dead asleep. Big dramatic deaths like falling twenty stories take a lot out of you. Behind Booker, Andromache and Quỳnh are so tangled up in each other that he's not sure who's technically in whose lap.</p>
<p>When he pulls up the dirt drive and parks in front of the cottage, Andromache is the first out of the car. She takes a few steps away and just stands there, head tilted upward, breathing deeply. Quỳnh joins her a moment later and wraps an arm around her waist. The others move more slowly, mumbling and groaning quietly to themselves as they go, and Booker waits until Nicky has gone on ahead to dig up the front door key from wherever they keep it hidden.</p>
<p>Nile hesitates, glancing back toward the other women. "Let them be," Joe tells her hoarsely. "They'll find us when they're ready."</p>
<p>Inside, the place is just as small and cozy as Booker remembers. There's some kind of leftover pasta in the fridge, which Nicky heats up on the stove for them all for a late dinner, along with some not-yet-stale bread and cheese in a cupboard. "Nicky made it last night," Nile says, sinking into a chair. "Jesus...last night. Has it only been twenty-four hours?"</p>
<p>Booker feels that same disbelief in the very depths of his soul. "You found us pretty fast," he remarks. "How the hell did you manage that, by the way? Not that I'm not grateful."</p>
<p>"Quỳnh," Nicky says shortly, joining them at the table. "She left a note leading us to Copley, and he led us to you."</p>
<p>There's something off in his tone, Booker thinks. Joe notices too, giving Nicky a worried glance, but neither of them comment on it. It has been a very long day. And Booker's starting to feel the weight of his own conscience, wondering when the other shoe is gonna drop.</p>
<p>The women still haven't rejoined them by the time they've finished eating. "Think they're okay?" Nile asks nervously. "Should we check on them?"</p>
<p>Joe and Nicky exchange a look. "I think that Andromache has not breathed in fresh air in five hundred years," Joe says quietly. "She always preferred the outdoors, anyway. Let me just bring a plate out to them--"</p>
<p>"I can do it," Booker says, getting quickly to his feet. "You guys decide who gets first dibs on the shower." It should be Nicky, since he's the most obviously blood-spattered, but they'll probably let Nile go first anyway.</p>
<p>Outside, a chilly breeze rustles through the leaves, but it does feel good. He finds Quỳnh and Andromache just a little ways into the nearest copse of trees. This isn't forestland, exactly; lots of rolling, grassy hills, and smaller wooded areas scattered throughout. The cottage is nestled up against one such, and relatively isolated -- the nearest village is a couple of kilometers away.</p>
<p>The women are speaking together quietly in low tones, seated at the roots of one of the bigger trees. They look up at Booker's approach. "Sorry to interrupt," he says gruffly. "We thought you might be hungry. Nicky made pasta."</p>
<p>Quỳnh gets to her feet to accept the plate and utensils with a faint smile. "Thanks, Book. I'll bring it back in when we're done."</p>
<p>"All right." He hesitates, then asks, "You gonna stay out here all night?"</p>
<p>"Yes," Andromache says firmly.</p>
<p>Quỳnh glances back at her, gaze softening, then passes the plate down. To Booker, she says, "Think the boys have any camping gear we could borrow?"</p>
<p>"I don't need to be coddled!"</p>
<p>"No, but I have grown soft and feeble," Quỳnh tells her primly. "And sleeping bags are fun."</p>
<p>Booker chuckles. "Yeah, they probably have something squirrelled away, I'll ask." When Quỳnh moves as if to sit back down, he catches her elbow gently. "Boss…"</p>
<p>He hadn't realized how open and unguarded her face appeared until it shutters again, and he hates himself a little more for being the cause of it. "Not tonight, Sebastien," she says in a low tone. "We'll discuss it as a team in the morning."</p>
<p>"If Nicky is gonna disembowel me, I'd rather get it over with," he says honestly.</p>
<p>Quỳnh sighs. "You're not the one he's...no mind. You fucked up, Booker, but that's all it was -- a fuckup. You're not the one who set us up. Even Copley didn't do that, as it turns out; he was set up himself. So…" She shrugs, and looks back over her shoulder at Andromache. "Shit happened. But it brought her back to us, so frankly, I'm not inclined to string you up for it. And if the boys decide otherwise, they can take it up with me."</p>
<p>She cups Booker's cheek in one hand, briefly, and he nods. Then she returns to her Andromache, and he turns and heads back into the cottage. He's still going to fret about it all night, of course, but he probably deserves to. He'll survive.</p><hr/>
<p>They let Nile take the first shower, of course; she's still picking bits of broken glass out of her braids from the windshield of the car she'd landed on. Joe tries to help with the washing up, but Nicky shoos him away, insisting that having spent the day being experimented on by mad scientists excuses Joe from household chores. By the time Nile is out of the bathroom, Nicky's rummaging around the cellar in search of camping gear for Andy and Quỳnh. So Joe tells Booker to take his turn while he has the chance, and helps Nile shove furniture around to set up makeshift sleeping areas for her and Booker. She seems to think the couch will serve as a sort of privacy screen between the actual bed and their piles of blankets on the rug; it's sweet, if misguided, so he indulges her. This cottage is too small for that, really. He doesn't particularly care. Privacy is a relatively modern concept, and this team lives in each other's pockets as often as not. Nile will get used to it soon enough.</p>
<p>When those two are all set, and Quỳnh has returned their dinner plate in exchange for a sleeping bag and some water bottles and then retreated back out into the night, Joe catches Nicky's arm before he can come up with any more mindless tasks to perform. "Beloved," he says quietly. "Let's get you cleaned up, now, hmmm?"</p>
<p>Nicky hesitates, then sighs, pressing his forehead to Joe's. "All right."</p>
<p>When Joe catches Nile watching them head toward the bathroom together, he winks at her. She gives him a thumbs up and sly grin in return, and he chuckles to himself.</p>
<p>The bathroom is small, like the rest of this cottage, with a lovely old clawfoot tub that dominates most of the space. It's not large enough to accommodate two grown men for a bath, but they can make it work if they take turns standing under the showerhead. Joe gently manhandles Nicky there first, their knees bumping together under the warm spray. There's probably not enough hot water left to take their time with it, more's the pity, but it'll do. </p>
<p>"You don't need to take care of me," Nicky mumbles, as Joe lathers shampoo into his hair, watching the water run pink and gray where it hits the white ceramic. "I'm not the one who's been tortured today."</p>
<p>"And I'm not the one who bathed in the blood of my enemies," Joe retorts drily. "You look a fright, Nicolò. I'm surprised you didn't put Nile off her dinner earlier. This is merely a public service."</p>
<p>Nicky huffs out a laugh, ducking his head down to let Joe scrub at it. His hand skims lightly down Joe's side and comes to rest on his hip. "Oh, well, in that case."</p>
<p>Eventually they swap places. Nicky is just as meticulous shampooing Joe's curls, which soon shifts into simply messaging his scalp. Joe sighs into it, wrapping his arms around Nicky's waist, eyes squeezed shut. He can feel the soft kisses Nicky presses to his brow, his cheek, the side of his neck, and his chest tightens with so much love it actually overwhelms him for a moment. He needed Nicky's touch so badly today, strapped onto that awful gurney with the air cold against his bare skin and needles driving into his side, that scientist slicing <em>pieces</em> off of him--</p>
<p>"Shh, love, please, it's all right now, you're here with me," Nicky is murmuring into his ear, urgently, holding him tight. Joe realizes that not all of the wetness on his own cheeks is from the shower. He's not sure what tipped Nicky off, but then, Nicky always notices things. It's what he does. Nicky keeps whispering endearments and reassurances in three or four different languages, just a low, steady stream of comforting nonsense, until Joe feels steady enough to reach for the soap and continue washing himself.</p>
<p>They pass the soap back and forth a couple more times, more for the excuse to keep touching than anything else. It's not even particularly erotic, just the sheer comfort of physical contact. Nicky nudges Joe until he turns so that he can run a washcloth down along Joe's back, kissing the knob at the top of his spine. His other hand is broad and warm at Joe's waist. "I wish I had--" Nicky starts, then cuts himself off. His grip on Joe tightens. "In the lab, did they--"</p>
<p>"Don't, my love," Joe says softly, twisting back in the circle of his arms to look at him properly. "Nothing that happened there was worth the telling."</p>
<p>Nicky shakes his head, still clutching the washcloth, staring down at some point on Joe's clavicle. "I should have been with you."</p>
<p>"I thank God with all my heart that you were not." Joe plucks the cloth out of Nicky's hand and drops it to one side. They're clean enough. The water is starting to run lukewarm anyway. "Nicky, you got us out of there. That's all that matters."</p>
<p>Nicky's whole body is starting to tremble, and not with cold. "I should have--"</p>
<p>"Nicolò, beloved, please." Joe fumbles behind himself for the taps, and shuts off the water. The tub is a terrible place for a breakdown. They're both wrung out and exhausted, and someone is going to slip and fall and crack their head open, and that will just traumatize them both all over again. "Come here."</p>
<p>Nicky holds it together with visible effort, enough to clamber out of the bathtub and mechanically rub himself down with a towel while Joe quickly does the same. The dark circles under his eyes are far more pronounced than usual -- shit, has he slept at all in the past forty-odd hours? Joe at least got a nap before their ill-fated mission at Hereford, and he was unconscious for a decent amount of his time in Merrick's lab, though he wouldn't consider that restful. They may be immortal, but sleep deprivation does as much of a number on them as anyone else.</p>
<p>"When did you last get any sleep, Nicky?"</p>
<p>"You sound like Nile," Nicky grouses. Good. As long as he's complaining, he's not falling apart. Joe passes him the sleep clothes he'd dug out of the tiny dresser, and they both pull on soft pajama pants and T-shirts, elbowing each other awkwardly in the cramped space. When Nicky finally meets Joe's eyes, he sighs and sags forward, his forehead coming to rest on Joe's shoulder. "With you," he admits. "In Rotterdam."</p>
<p>Joe presses a kiss to the top of his head, his heart aching. "Come on, then."</p>
<p>The cottage is dark and still when they emerge. Booker's already snoring quietly from the floor, and Joe can see Nile curled up with her back to the couch. They've all been through the wringer today; resurrection burns up energy like nobody's business, not to mention the adrenaline crash after a battle.</p>
<p>Nicky laces his fingers through Joe's and pulls him onto the bed. It's a good bed, the best piece of furniture in this place, no creaky springs or anything. Joe really likes this bed. Right now, it feels like absolute heaven. Especially with Nicky warm and solid and <em>here</em> in his arms.</p>
<p>They curl up facing each other, legs tangling together, Nicky's hands clutching Joe's T-shirt as he presses his face into the side of Joe's neck and breathes deeply. Joe strokes up and down his back, feeling all his muscles slowly start to relax. Joe's body is trembling a little, now, too. Fuck, what a day it's been.</p>
<p>"I'm never letting go of you again," Nicky mutters, rubbing his nose along the underside of Joe's jaw.</p>
<p>Joe lets out a shaky breath and strokes his thumb across Nicky's chin, tilting his head up for a kiss. "Sounds good to me."</p>
<p>They exchange soft, reassuring kisses, just holding each other, until between one breath and the next, they fall asleep.</p><hr/>
<p>Quỳnh starts awake in the middle of the night, gasping, the formless terrors of her nightmare already dissipating. She can't remember what she dreamed, just that it made her feel cold inside and out.</p>
<p>The space beside her is cool and empty, and for several long, awful moments, she thinks that Andromache had been the dream. This whole day, just a passing nightmare: the lab and the tests and the bloodbath that followed. They had never been taken. They had never found Andy at all.</p>
<p>She gets to her feet in a panic, breath coming in short pants, biting back a scream. But no: Quỳnh is standing beneath the trees just outside of the boys' cottage, the ground sloping upward into a rolling hillside. In England, where she would never choose to go except out of necessity. She has not camped out in the woods for <em>fun</em> in centuries. Andy was here, sleeping beside her. Or not sleeping, apparently. Andy was <em>here</em>. She would not have gone far. But where would she have gone?</p>
<p>The branches rustle in a chill breeze overhead, and Quỳnh tilts her face upward, the dense, leafy canopy covering the nighttime sky.</p>
<p>Andromache has not seen the stars in five hundred years.</p>
<p>Quỳnh finds her at the hilltop, no more than five minutes' walk from the cottage. She is lying on her back in the grass, spread-eagled, staring up at the starry skies. The moon is barely a sliver of crescent. Andy's pale green eyes glitter in the starlight.</p>
<p>"The constellations have changed," Andy says in an old dialect of Greek, her voice low and rasping. She has already spoken more words in the past twelve hours than in the five centuries previous. She sounds as though she will always be a little bit hoarse from screaming. "Not so very much, but just...not quite where I left them."</p>
<p>Quỳnh drops down into the grass beside her, hugging her knees to her chest. "So few of the star patterns of my childhood remain, even when I return to that same shore."</p>
<p>"I know," Andy murmurs. "You're the only one who has seen them shift as I have."</p>
<p>"Ah, well." Quỳnh blinks back tears, trying to smile at her. "The others are still children yet. Give them time, they'll see the stars as we do."</p>
<p>"You'll have to let me know how that goes." Andy rolls over onto her side facing Quỳnh, propping herself up on one elbow. "Hey, Quỳnh, don't look at me like that. I'm not dead yet."</p>
<p>Quỳnh reaches out to clasp her wrist, feeling the beating pulse there beneath her fingertips. "No. You're here, with me." </p>
<p>"For all my days." Andy shifts her palm to lace their fingers together, staring down at them. Her thumb strokes along Quỳnh's knuckles. "You first died by drowning."</p>
<p>A breath catches in Quỳnh's throat, not quite a sob. "Yes."</p>
<p>Andy smiles faintly. "It was my very first dream of you. The very first time I realized I might not be alone in this world forever." She brings Quỳnh's hand up to her lips, places a kiss on her fingertips. "That was my last tether to sanity, I think, slim though it was. That at least I could remember you."</p>
<p>"That is not how I would like to be remembered," Quỳnh tells her, trying for a lightly chiding tone and missing by several miles.</p>
<p>"Nor I," Andy agrees wryly. "But it was better than anything else down there, believe me."</p>
<p>Quỳnh reels her in, then, unable to live another moment in a world where she is not kissing Andromache. Perhaps it should be strange, that they would fall back into each other so easily after so long and traumatic a separation; but what are five hundred years in the timespan of their lives? She would rather dwell on their millennia together than this one awful aberration.</p>
<p>It won't be so easy, of course. Quỳnh feels as though she has been crafted from dried-out clay; one sharp rap in the wrong place and she might shatter to pieces. And for all Andy's outward display of resilience, Quỳnh knows she's still clinging on by a thread herself. A strong thread, thickly woven, and Quỳnh will do everything in her power to keep it from fraying, but still. This has been a good night, in a strange sort of way; Andy is free, and was able to take an active role in her own liberation, to begin to feel like herself again. There will be bad days to come, and worse.</p>
<p>But for now, they at least have this, and each other. It will be enough. Quỳnh will make it so.</p><hr/>
<p>When Booker is the one to make the breakfast run into the village early that morning, entirely unprompted, Nicky knows it's going to be a difficult conversation. He returns laden with pastries from the local bakery and roughly two gallons of coffee, along with fruit he purchased from God knows where. It's not that Booker can't be thoughtful like this -- he's better at keeping track of basic necessities than Quỳnh has ever been, that's for sure -- but he really doesn't do mornings, or breakfast, as a rule.</p>
<p>The cottage feels rather cramped with all six of them gathered inside. It's only ever really been Nicky and Joe's place; Nicky can count on one hand the number of times either Booker or Quỳnh had visited before this week. There aren't enough chairs, and the little table is too small for them to crowd around anyway; Quỳnh and Andy commandeer the couch, while Nicky and Joe just sit cross-legged on the rug with a plate of fruit and scones between them. Nile drags one of the chairs over to close the circle. </p>
<p>"Before we meet with Copley," Booker says from the other chair, clutching a mug of coffee in both hands and staring down into it like it holds all the secrets of the universe, "there's something you all should know."</p>
<p>He quietly lays out the full story of his history with Copley, going back to Surabaya. The natural rapport that had developed between them over the course of that job -- Booker frequently took on that intermediary role -- followed by years of sporadic contact. Copley would sometimes ask Booker's opinion on developing situations, given the team's expertise in the field; Booker reached out occasionally to ask Copley to check up on more questionable job offers. They've all acquired their own private contacts in various fields, given their unorthodox line of work; nothing objectionable there. But then came Copley's reveal, a year ago, that he knew about their immortality.</p>
<p>And Booker hadn't shut him down. Instead, he'd gone along with it. For months, right up until Copley said he was reaching out to Merrick Pharmaceuticals, and then...radio silence.</p>
<p>"I presume that's when Merrick pulled me out of the ocean," Andy drawls. She's cutting a swathe through the pastries with obvious relish. Nicky makes a mental note to track down some baklava for her later; that used to be her favorite.</p>
<p>"Likely," Booker agrees heavily. "I never followed up after that. I didn't know."</p>
<p>"But you did know there was a good chance Merrick knew who we were," Joe says, stony-faced. "And you didn't think maybe <em>we</em> might have needed that information before Hereford?"</p>
<p>Booker hunches his shoulders forward, not meeting anyone's eyes. "I thought Copley was on our side."</p>
<p>"And as it turns out, he was," Quỳnh cuts in. "None of what happened was really Booker's fault." She gives Booker a wry look. "Possibly in spite of himself."</p>
<p>"So he's not a traitor, just a sucker," Joe snaps. "What the <em>hell</em>, Book?"</p>
<p>"Yeah, I fucked up," Booker sighs. "I'm sorry, okay? It's not like I enjoyed being in that lab, either."</p>
<p>Joe scoffs. "Oh, yeah, that must've been real hard for you, actually facing the consequences of your actions. And you left out the part where your dreams of Andromache changed <em>months</em> ago and you never thought to mention--"</p>
<p>"When has talking about those dreams ever gone well for me, huh?" Booker shoots back, roused enough to look Joe in the eye now. "Those fucking nightmares just caused pain for everyone, why would I want to bring them up again after two hundred years? I didn't know what it meant!"</p>
<p>"If you'd ever talked to us about any of this shit we could have <em>told</em> you--"</p>
<p>Nicky presses his hand to Joe's shoulder. "<em>Basta</em>," he says quietly. "Joe, that's enough. He can't change it now."</p>
<p>It's not that he thinks Joe should not be angry. Joe has every right to his anger; Booker had made a rather colossal error in judgment and then doubled down by keeping it secret, likely out of shame. Then that had led to far worse, as such decisions always would. Nicky should be furious with Booker, himself. He thinks maybe he is, distantly, but mostly...he's just <em>tired</em>. The past couple of days have drained him in every imaginable way, and he can't work up the effort that righteous anger requires right now.</p>
<p>It hurts so much, being this angry with people he loves, especially when he knows they were just trying their best.</p>
<p>Nile clears her throat awkwardly. "The dreams -- I mean, I was having them, too. About Andy in the lab. And I didn't realize what they meant either, until Nicky said something. So, like, I'm not sure that part's totally on Booker."</p>
<p>She's so sweet, and so strong, this new little sister of theirs, and it's deeply unfair that she came to them at so fraught a moment. This must feel like watching her parents fight.</p>
<p>"Nicky," Booker says, and it's <em>painful</em> how wary he sounds. Does Nicky really frighten him so much? "I swear to you all that I didn't know it was a trap."</p>
<p>Nicky can't quite bring himself to look at him, focusing on some point vaguely to the left of Booker's ear. "No, I know," he says distantly. "Like Joe said. You did not deliberately betray us. You just didn't <em>think</em>." His gaze flickers over to Quỳnh, and his jaw clenches in spite of himself.</p>
<p>She meets him without flinching. "Let's have it, Nicolò."</p>
<p>"I do not want to fight."</p>
<p>"And I don't want this to fester," she retorts. Her dark eyes flash. "So say what's on your mind."</p>
<p>Nicky folds his arms across his chest. "Booker may not have thought Copley would set us up, but <em>you</em> did. At least you suspected."</p>
<p>Quỳnh matches his steely gaze. "I thought it was a possibility, yes. I would have called it off if I'd known for sure."</p>
<p>"Fine, so you knew you <em>might</em> be walking into a trap," Nicky continues flatly. "You <em>knew</em>, and you deliberately left me behind. That was <em>your</em> decision, Quỳnh. To put Joe in danger instead of me!" He pushes himself to his feet, he can't help it. "Why not me, Quỳnh?"</p>
<p>"As a safeguard." Unexpectedly, this is from Andy. There's a great deal of sympathy in her eyes when she looks at Nicky. It rankles. "If it all went sideways, she wanted someone on the outside ready to come after them. And no offense," she adds, to Nile, "but that's too much to put all on the new kid."</p>
<p>"Yes, obviously," Nicky snaps, "but she should have taken <em>me</em> to Hereford and left Joe out of it!"</p>
<p>Nile snorts. "Like Joe wouldn't be just as pissed right now if she had."</p>
<p>"I considered it," Quỳnh says quietly. "But Joe's greatest strength is his passion -- he leads with his heart. And that is not what we needed most."</p>
<p>It's Joe's turn to catch Nicky, rubbing soothing circles around his ankle. "Quỳnh," Joe says, a clear warning in his tone.</p>
<p>She shrugs, looking about as strung out as Nicky feels. One night's exhausted sleep wasn't enough for any of them. "Joe would not have created a diversion. He would've come straight for you, and damn the consequences. We still would have gotten out, I think, but it would have been much more difficult."</p>
<p>Nicky's hands clench at his sides, and Joe reaches up to clasp his wrist, gently massaging until his hand relaxes and Joe can tangle their fingers together. "It worked out in the end, Nicky. You and Nile got us out of there. We're all okay, yeah?"</p>
<p>Nicky bows his head a moment, feeling the weariness settle like a weight on his shoulders. "Okay. Fine." He gives Joe's hand a quick squeeze, then pulls away. "We need to go meet Copley, yes? I'm going to get the car ready."</p>
<p>There's absolutely nothing that needs to be done with the car, of course, but it lets him escape the close air of the cottage and feel the wind on his face and just...breathe. He wanders over to the copse and braces himself on the trunk of a tree, feeling the rough bark beneath his palm.</p>
<p>After a minute, the door opens again, and he tenses. It's Andromache. She makes her way to him, direct as ever, and his heart does a little flip in his chest at the reminder. "Andy," he sighs. "I am sorry. I wouldn't have wanted your first day back with us to be so…" He gestures expressively, searching for the right word and failing.</p>
<p>She seems to understand anyway. "It's all right. As long as you're all working through your own bullshit, it means you're not hovering over <em>me</em>." Her lips twist into a wry smile. "I can't stand being coddled."</p>
<p>"No, of course not," he laughs, a little wetly. "Andromache…"</p>
<p>Andy regards him for a moment, then rolls her eyes and pulls him into a hug. He returns it gratefully, wrapping his arms around her. She feels too thin, but strong, still. Indomitable. "We've missed you so much," he tells her.</p>
<p>Her grip on him tightens, and then she releases him, cupping the back of his neck for a moment with a smile. "Yeah, I guess I missed you, too."</p>
<p>He feels a little lighter for it. They both lean back against the broad tree trunk, shoulders bumping companionably. "How are you feeling, though?" he asks quietly. "This must all be...a lot."</p>
<p>Andy laughs a little. "You're telling me." She looks back toward the cottage, gaze going distant. "I feel...more myself. At least, I remember what it felt like to be Andromache the Scythian, and that's a start. When they brought me into that room, and I saw Quỳnh and Yusuf there -- <em>Joe</em>," she corrects herself ruefully. "Anyway. I feel like I've been in freefall ever since. It's exhilarating for now, but I also know the crash is coming, and it's gonna be a bitch."</p>
<p>"We will help you through it," Nicky promises. "Whatever you need."</p>
<p>Andy nods, but there's sadness in her smile. "I'm not sure what that will mean. My world has been very small for a very long time, and now… I love you all, but this is...well. Like you said. A lot."</p>
<p>They're quiet for a time, listening to the faint sounds of voices and movement within the cottage. Finally, Nicky says, "Maybe you and Quỳnh should go away together for a little while."</p>
<p>"Sick of me already, are you?"</p>
<p>"No!" Even knowing she's joking, it makes his chest tighten. "No, of course not. But...even I can find the modern world overwhelming, sometimes, and I've been living through it. You need time, Andy. And time to be with Quỳnh again, too, I think. If it had been Joe…" He shudders reflexively. Joe had been held captive for all of a day, and a primal, needy part of Nicky wants to bundle him away someplace safe and cling onto him for at least a few decades, just to be sure he's all right. He can't even imagine what he would do after five hundred years apart. It's honestly astonishing that either Andy or Quỳnh emerged even remotely sane after that.</p>
<p>"You might be right," Andy says quietly. She shoots him a sidelong glance. "And from that little spat, I'm guessing you and Quỳnh could use some time apart right now."</p>
<p>Nicky pinches the bridge of his nose with a sigh. "Maybe. I love her so much, Andy, and I do understand why she made the choices she did, but...it hurts to look at her right now." He drops his hand to his side again. "I'll get over myself. But it will be easier, I think, if we go our own ways for a bit. I just don't want to be the reason that the family breaks apart."</p>
<p>"Never, Nicolò." Andy reaches out to squeeze his hand briefly. "Besides, you're not the only ones with tension. I think it hurts Joe to look at Booker right now, too."</p>
<p>"He has more reason for it."</p>
<p>"It's not about <em>reason</em>," Andy points out. "We don't come together because it's logical; we're family, Nicky. With all the shit that entails."</p>
<p>"Yes," Nicky agrees softly, as Nile and Joe emerge from the cottage, chatting animatedly together. "We are."</p><hr/>
<p>They wind up finishing the conversation at Copley's. After the rest of the team has a chance to examine his stalker wall -- does it count as a conspiracy theory when you're <em>right</em>, Nile wonders -- they head out to the deck to decide what to do next. Copley hovers awkwardly at first, uncertain of his place, but Quỳnh informs him in no uncertain terms that he's going to be helping them from here on out. He looks relieved to acquiesce.</p>
<p>Booker recuses himself from the discussion from the start. "I think I've forfeited the right to make any decisions for the good of the group," he says ruefully, and from the stony expressions on Joe and Nicky's faces, they agree.</p>
<p>After a few minutes, Andy opts to follow him inside. She shrugs off their protests. "In case you hadn't noticed, I'm a fish out of water here," she points out sardonically. "I have no context for half the shit you're talking about. But for what it's worth…" She glances back toward the house, where Booker waits in the living room; then looks pointedly between Nicky and Quỳnh, who have been painfully polite to each other since their little skirmish in the cottage. "Every choice each of you made eventually led us all back together. So as far as I'm concerned, any debts have been settled." She pulls the sliding door open. "Let me know what you decide."</p>
<p>Nile mostly stays quiet throughout, listening and assessing, but the others respect her opinions when she chooses to offer them, and take her words seriously. It feels good. It feels like she belongs here.</p>
<p>Once it's all settled, and the boys are speaking quietly together while Quỳnh hashes out a few last details with Copley, Nile heads back into the house. She finds Andy and Booker in front of the bulletin boards again. Booker seems to be explaining some of the events of the past hundred-odd years to her, using the photos on the board as visual aids. It's actually a cool little history lesson, Nile thinks; she'll have to ask him about it herself later.</p>
<p>"Hey, Nile," Booker says, turning to her. His hands are shoved deep in his pockets. "So what's the verdict?"</p>
<p>"It's not like you were on trial."</p>
<p>Booker's mouth twists a little. "Wasn't I?"</p>
<p>She lets that slide. "We're all gonna split up for a while," she tells them. "Not as punishment or anything! No one needs to be punished! Just to, like, recuperate and get our heads on straight. Quỳnh wants to take Andy someplace quiet, give you a chance to get back to yourself again, catch up on stuff. She thinks for a year or so. Maybe a little longer. Depends on what you both think you need."</p>
<p>Andy nods calmly. She doesn't seem surprised. Nile's pretty sure she and Quỳnh have already talked about this, at least a little; Andy's not the sort of person who lets her partner make all the decisions on her behalf. "What about Joe and Nicky?"</p>
<p>"They want some time alone together, too," Nile says. "A month, maybe, but they'll be back soon enough."</p>
<p>"And me?" Booker asks quietly.</p>
<p>Nile raises an eyebrow. "You and me are gonna stay with Copley for a bit, help him learn the ropes. Immortal Wrangling 101. And he's gonna teach us a few new security tricks while we're at it. This way, you can look over Copley's shoulder until we're sure we can trust him." As far as penance goes, she thinks it's not a bad idea. Booker's obviously feeling pretty guilty about his role in how it all went down; he'll be hypervigilant about checking Copley's work, wanting to redeem himself to the others.</p>
<p>Booker gives her a crooked smile. "While you're looking over mine?"</p>
<p>"That's the idea," she agrees, with a wry grin of her own. "Keep us all honest. And Quỳnh's gonna be checking in on the regular, too, albeit long distance. We can crash here for a few days until Copley helps us get a state-of-the-art new safehouse set up. He's thinking Ireland."</p>
<p>Booker nods, looking pensive. There's a faint light in his eyes that she hasn't seen before. Maybe it's something like hope. "You okay with all this, Nile?" he asks. "I know you said you've still got family back home…"</p>
<p>"Yeah." She swallows hard. "There was never really any going back, was there? Not for good, not with how this all fell out. Copley says he can fix up a cover story, make it look like I was killed in action, but if I want to open up a private line to them, we'll figure something out."</p>
<p>That clearly startles him. "Quỳnh would let you see them again?"</p>
<p>"She doesn't think it's a good idea, but she says it's my choice." Nile hugs herself, breathing deep. "I haven't made up my mind yet. Maybe it would be better to just let them mourn and move on."</p>
<p>"Quỳnh's family turned on her when she came back to them," Andy says quietly. She's wandered back toward the bulletin board, standing in front of an image of Quỳnh in soldier's garb from the 1800s, disguised as a man. Her face is unmistakable, though, if you know to look. "She has reason to be wary."</p>
<p>Booker's expression is unreadable. "I never knew that."</p>
<p>Andy shrugs. "She doesn't talk about it. Can't blame her; some scars just don't heal. I don't remember my own mother's face anymore, or my sisters. It's not so much what time steals away, but what it leaves behind."</p>
<p>But she's looking at the photos as she says it, and it sounds more thoughtful than depressing. What they've left behind is a legacy of <em>helping</em> people, of untold generations paying it forward without even realizing. And this is just the impact the team has had in the past century or so, and only what Copley was able to dig up. The reality of it, of all the good they've done over their combined histories, is just...staggering.</p>
<p>No, Nile can't fathom a world in which she can no longer recall her mother's smile, or her brother's laugh. Or her father's scent when he wrapped her in his arms. Maybe they will leave scars on her heart, in the end, but she thinks she'd rather have a few more memories tucked away before then.</p>
<p>"What about you, Book?" Nile asks. "You never went back to your family. Do you wish you could have done it differently?"</p>
<p>"I would do a lot of things differently, if I could go back," Booker says wryly. "But I had many regrets from my first life that becoming immortal definitely didn't help with. And time only ever moves forward." There's that Gallic shrug again. "At least maybe I feel like I'm moving forward with it, now. All this…" He looks across the bulletin boards with a faint smile. "Maybe there's some purpose to this shit after all. I could live with that." </p>
<p>It doesn't really answer Nile's question. She supposes he never meant to. Booker's regrets are his own; Nile's choices are up to her. She's got to find her own way forward, knowing her new family will have her back whatever she decides. She's sure of that much, at least.</p>
<p>She thinks she will ask Copley to put her in touch with her mom and brother, after all, as long as he can do it in a way that keeps them safe. But she can't return to her old life now.</p>
<p>There's so much more she has to give.</p><hr/>
<p>
  <strong>(after.)</strong>
</p>
<p>Andy doesn't recall the first time she rode across the Mongolian steppes. Most of her first millennium was spent in a similar fashion, but further west, north of the Black Sea. She ventured eastward by degrees over time. But her most vivid memories of this part of the world were riding with the Xiongnu along with Quỳnh and Lykon. It was the first major journey they'd undertaken as a trio, after meeting Lykon in Judea, and they'd lingered there for close to a century, the nomadic lifestyle well suited to keeping their immortality secret. They simply moved on from one tribe to another whenever they judged too much time had passed, and no one ever questioned them.</p>
<p>It was a good life. Andromache and Quỳnh could share their tent openly, and Lykon found no shortage of intrigued young people up for a tumble. He even settled down for a time, by Lykon standards, spending a solid decade with one bawdy, laughing woman who could outshoot him while blindfolded and tied to a horse. Andy can't remember her name, but she and Quỳnh had tried and failed several times to lure her away for themselves, to Lykon's eternal amusement. What a beautiful spirit she had been.</p>
<p>Moving further northward than usual one hot summer, they'd stumbled across a cavern nestled within a foothill of the Sayan Mountains, not far from the shores of Lake Khövsgöl. It became one of their first secret caches, a safehouse before they'd really had a concept for such a thing. It started out as barely more than a crack in the mountains, so narrow one had to press their way through, but opened into a wider cavern with a trickle of water running through it. It was secluded, nearly impossible to find, and sheltered from the elements. Gradually, over centuries, they'd carved out a space for themselves there. Not a home, and not terribly comfortable -- though piles of furs on the ground worked wonders -- but shelter, and a sense of security. Joe and Nicky never had reason to come here; it was only ever the eldest immortals who knew of it.</p>
<p>This is where Quỳnh brings her, after London. It's ancient and familiar and <em>theirs</em>, and miraculously untouched by the modern world. There are campsites by the lake now, but the area is protected -- Quỳnh introduces her to the concept of a <em>National Park</em> -- and so long as they're careful, they remain unnoticed, or at the very least unremarked upon. Just another pair of tourists hiking the park. They make periodic trips to the nearest village, for food and other supplies, and for Quỳnh to check in with Copley via the laptop Andy is slowly learning how to use. Andy also learns how to drive a truck (badly) and how modern currency works (at least in practice, though she's still not sure why a piece of plastic functions as a promissory note or how anyone keeps track of how much money it supposedly contains; Quỳnh says she'll explain modern banking practices later).</p>
<p>There are good days and there are bad ones, as Andy had expected. She's always had difficulty tracking time properly, having possessed it in such overabundance that it never quite seemed worth the counting; now her memories can be muddled and fuzzy. Everything before the sea is <em>before</em>, and blurs together; now is simply <em>after</em>.</p>
<p>She sticks to speaking modern English as much as possible, the only language she's heard in the past six months and apparently the default for her family now as well. "How on earth did that happen?" she does ask once, bemused.</p>
<p>"Lingua franca," Quỳnh sighs. "We've always tried to stick to the dominant language of wherever we happen to be; somewhere in the last century or so, English became the universal traders' tongue. Fucking colonialism." (Later, she'll have to explain colonialism as well.)</p>
<p>"Nicky must have hated that," Andy says drily.</p>
<p>Quỳnh laughs, loud and bright. "He refuses to master the accent out of sheer spite."</p>
<p>But some mornings Andy wakes up and her brain can't parse it properly, reverting back to languages she's long since forgotten the names of, can't even recall where they had ever been spoken at all. She trips and cuts her hand open on a sharp rock and stares at the little gash for twenty solid minutes, wondering why it's still bleeding. She gets distracted and asks idly what Lykon's been up to lately, because she always thinks of him in this place and he was a part of her life for three times as long as Joe and Nicky ever were. Then she abruptly has to grieve him all over again.</p>
<p>And sometimes she looks out across the deep blue-green of the lake and just starts shaking uncontrollably, feeling her lungs fill up with water and fish nibble at her skin and it's all she can do not to start screaming.</p>
<p>But Quỳnh takes her hand and draws her back toward the mountains, lies her down in the tall grasses and presses her warm, solid body all along the length of Andy's, stroking her fingers through Andy's short hair and whispering calm reassurances. And Andy remembers how to breathe, staring up at the endless expanse of the sky.</p>
<p>It's not always easy for Quỳnh, either. She misses the rest of their family deeply, and Andy can't tell if it helps or hurts when she tells Andy extended stories about their past few centuries together. Sometimes she clings onto Andy too tightly, can't bear to let her out of her sight even for a moment, drives her half mad dogging her footsteps and peering over her shoulder. Other days, she disappears without warning (though she always leaves a note, Andy quickly discovers), and returns many hours later with tearful apologies and no explanation of where she's been. Nowhere in particular, Andy knows; she's always needed space for the silence of her own thoughts. It's part of why she and Andy always suited each other so well -- they both share a deep appreciation for solitude. But now Quỳnh feels absurdly guilty for having her own needs, and then Andy lashes out at the implication she needs to be coddled at all times, and it devolves from there until they fuck or fight it out. (Same difference, honestly -- their fights have always turned physical one way or the other.)</p>
<p>In their cache within the cavern (along with silks dyed in colors that still shimmer, baskets lacquered in resin for preservation, marble statues carved in Greece by artists whose names live on only in their memories) is Andy's labrys. The metal never shone -- not even when it was first forged -- but nor has Quỳnh permitted it to rust, and the leather grips have been lovingly oiled. It fits in Andy's hands like she'd never let it go.</p>
<p>When she and Quỳnh spar together -- carefully at first, at least on Quỳnh's side; less so when they need to work out some mutual frustration -- their blades clash and sing. Andy's muscles didn't atrophy as much as they might have over her long captivity, since she'd been immortal and constantly healing for all but the very end of it. But even weakened, muscle memory proves truer than that of her mind. This is a dance she knows very well indeed, and Quỳnh has always been her favorite partner in it.</p>
<p>At night she relearns Quỳnh's body in other ways, so soft and strong, the heat of their skin kindling between them like wildfire, and the tears that sometimes trickle down Quỳnh's cheeks taste of salt but never quite like seawater. The rest of her tastes even better. The sounds she makes when they move together are lovelier than any music Andromache has ever heard, and Andy plays her like a beloved instrument lost for a time but never truly forgotten.</p>
<p>When summer ends, they plan to move on to more hospitable climes; Andy doesn't mind the cold, but she's not relishing the memories of mountain blizzards, either. They haven't decided where yet. Quỳnh shows her maps using her laptop, detailed and accurate beyond anything Andy had known before, and they take turns randomly selecting dots on the screen and discussing what sort of life they might build together there. Last night it was Australia, an entire continent Andromache had never even known existed before.</p>
<p>"Mostly desert," Quỳnh tells her, wrinkling her nose a little. "Beautiful beaches, though. Also the most dangerous wildlife in the world, just about everything there can kill you. Hmm. Probably not the best idea, given your very inconvenient mortality now. Even if it would be hilarious to watch you fight a kangaroo."</p>
<p>Andy thinks it sounds amazing. But then again, just about everywhere does, so long as Quỳnh is there. "How about here?" she asks instead, pointing at a spot on the other side of the globe labeled <em>Iowa</em>, and Quỳnh groans theatrically and starts bitching about the Americans.</p>
<p>Andy just grins and runs her hand through Quỳnh's hair, letting the sound of her beloved's voice wash over her. She's not fussed about where they wind up next. She has faith they'll figure it out eventually.</p><hr/>
<p>
  <strong>(soon.)</strong>
</p>
<p>Joe awakens slowly, senses coming back online one at a time. First he's just aware of the wall pressed against his back, the warm skin beneath the palm of his hand, and the gentle sensation of fingertips stroking lightly up and down his bare arm. It raises pleasant goosebumps along his skin, and he hums approvingly. He feels rather than hears Nicky's low, rumbling chuckle in response, and gradually blinks his eyes open. Nicky is curled in facing him, their knees bumping together, his eyes gleaming faintly in the dim light of the cabin.</p>
<p>"Hello," Nicky murmurs with a teasing glint of a smile. "As much as I like watching you sleep, I'm glad you're awake. We dock in about an hour."</p>
<p>As always, Joe's brain is the last part of him to awaken. "Dock?"</p>
<p>Nicky just raises his eyebrows and waits for him to remember...ah, of course. Because they boarded the overnight ferry in Cherbourg, which is why they're currently pressed so close together in this narrow berth. Not that they wouldn't be equally entwined on a king size mattress, but it's still rather more cramped than their usual. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, Joe thinks, as he slips his arm around Nicky's waist and tugs him in even closer. Nicky exhales breathily as certain other parts of their anatomy brush together as well. "Joe…"</p>
<p>"You just said we had an hour," Joe points out, rubbing his nose against Nicky's. If he has to wake up, they may as well make it worth his while. And it's been so nice, this past month and change, being able to just <em>be</em> together however they like. It will be nice to rejoin Nile and Booker, too, of course. But they tend to be slightly more circumspect in the company of others.</p>
<p>Maybe Nicky's thinking about that, too, because he makes no further protest, simply closes the hairsbreadth of space between them. Joe hums happily into his kiss, luxuriating in the softness of Nicky's lips, the heat of his mouth, the familiar taste and scent of him. He could joyfully just make out with him until they dock at Rosslare, and it would be enough. But why settle for enough when he can have <em>Nicky</em>?</p>
<p>Despite the time constraint, Nicky takes him apart slowly, with great care, making sure to pay reverence to every part of Joe's body, mapping out every inch of his skin in loving cartography. Joe can no longer recall precisely where that scientist had cut into him; any sense memory of puncture marks has long since been overwritten by Nicky's gentle hands and tongue. This is how Joe has reclaimed himself in the weeks since the Merrick fiasco, how together he and Nicky have scrubbed away that awful man's legacy. Compared to their long history, all the wonders they've seen and horrors they've endured and love they've poured into one another and the world, Merrick was hardly even a blip.</p>
<p>Project Ozymandias, indeed, Joe thinks, pressing his face against Nicky's sweat-slick neck with a groan. Poetic justice in a very literal sense: <em>Nothing beside remains.</em></p>
<p>Afterward, once they've quickly showered and dressed, they make their way out onto the ferry's deck. The summer air is warm enough, but there's a cool breeze whipping across the waves, and the sun keeps ducking coyly behind gray clouds. Irish weather at its finest.</p>
<p>"Do you remember," Nicky says, "when we rowed all night to get to Ireland, after we first dreamed of Booker?"</p>
<p>Joe grins and joins him at the railing, their shoulders pressed together. "I remember the relief I felt when those cliffs finally appeared at dawn, like a mirage in the desert."</p>
<p>They're approaching the country from the east, this time; there are no cliffs along this particular stretch of shoreline. And they're merely passengers now. Joe sure as fuck doesn't miss picking splinters out of his palms from those oars.</p>
<p>He also remembers Quỳnh's desolation, then, staring miserably out across the waters where Andromache still lay drowning. At least that tale endured long enough to reach something like a happy ending. Time may not truly heal all wounds, but it eases the ache of them, eventually. There is nothing to mark the stretch of sea where the iron maiden sank. Let it be forgotten.</p>
<p>"What are you thinking of, my love?" Nicky asks softly.</p>
<p>Joe manages a crooked smile. "Ozymandias. <em>The site of this forgotten Babylon.</em>"</p>
<p>"I don't remember that line from the poem."</p>
<p>"Ah, not Shelley's version. There was another one, can't remember the author, some friend of his." Joe closes his eyes, trying to retrieve the words. He's always had a good memory for poetry, though he never thought the English language had quite the right resonance. "It imagines someone from the future looking back on <em>the wilderness where London stood</em>, and wondering." He shrugs. "Shelley's is the more beautiful, I think, but there is something poignant about the other. That we should not feel somehow superior to those that came before."</p>
<p>Nicky hums agreement, leaning in to kiss him. "Someone should have told Merrick that."</p>
<p>"I'm pretty sure Quỳnh tried to. He wasn't interested."</p>
<p>Nicky laughs softly. "I'm sure she did. I do miss her, you know."</p>
<p>"Of course you do. We'll see her soon enough." Joe covers his hand on the railing, lacing their fingers together. "She and Andy needed their own time together, you know. It's not because you two argued."</p>
<p>"I know," Nicky murmurs, staring down at their joined hands. "And a year or so is nothing; we've taken longer <em>naps</em>. I just…"</p>
<p>Joe kisses him again, so very gently. "Yeah. But it'll be better when they come back to us. They will be <em>whole</em> again." </p>
<p>Nicky nods, leaning against him, and they watch the port approach in peace.</p>
<p>They'd chosen the ferry route because it felt less conspicuous than a commercial flight, and they're all trying to stay under the radar until they're sure the Merrick thing has blown over. Also because this way they could bring a car across from the continent, and it's always preferable to be in command of one's own transportation. Especially when one is heading for a safehouse.</p>
<p>It takes time for the docking to complete and all the passenger vehicles to be unloaded, and then they have to buy a roadmap from the port newsstand. The teenager behind the counter looks frankly incredulous that anyone would still want to purchase a paper map. Nicky prefers not to trust that GPS isn't tracking them right back. He's been a bit more paranoid than usual lately, and Joe indulges him without complaint, fully understanding the cause of it. Their month alone together eased their minds somewhat -- Nicky is actually able to sleep through the night again now -- but some shadows will linger for a long while. Ah, well. Their lives have certainly never lacked excitement.</p>
<p>Their drive from the harbor to the new safehouse outside of Waterford only adds about another hour to the journey, and it's a pleasantly scenic trip along a winding country route that does not quite qualify as a highway.</p>
<p>("We will get there faster if I drive," Nicky points out.</p>
<p>"We will get <em>arrested</em> if you drive."</p>
<p>"Only if they can catch me.")</p>
<p>It's a quiet ride for the most part, both content to just enjoy each other's company and watch the green countryside roll past. Eventually, Nicky remarks, "Now you've got it stuck in my head as well."</p>
<p>"Hmm?"</p>
<p>"The poetry, those fragments of it. Do you suppose Quỳnh and Andy ever visited Babylon? As it once was?"</p>
<p>Joe smiles, imagining it. The Hanging Gardens, a wonder of the ancient world. He would have liked to have seen them, but that was well before even his and Nicky's time. "They must have done."</p>
<p>"So nothing that matters is truly lost." Nicky leans back against his window, looking at Joe with such softness in his Byzantine eyes. "Not so long as we remain. Those we protect, the people whose lives we save, Copley's ridiculous bulletin board...we're preserving their memories as well. And ensuring they continue onward."</p>
<p>Joe has to keep his eyes on the road lest they wind up in a ditch in the Irish countryside, but he reaches out to catch Nicky's hand and bring it to his lips. "Ready to get back to work, then, my heart?"</p>
<p>"Yes," Nicky says simply. It's been wonderful, this space apart, these weeks of peace to recuperate, but they both grow restless in indolence. It will feel good to have a purpose again.</p>
<p>They follow the map to the address Copley sent them, and find a comfortable two-story stone house at the end of a winding drive, nestled amongst scraggly trees. A grassy slope leads down toward the riverbank. Not a bad spot to spend a few months, Joe thinks; a pleasant place to retreat to after missions. He supposes this will do, for all that it's too far north for his tastes.</p>
<p>As if on cue, a chilly rain begins to fall, and Nicky laughs outright at the chagrined expression on his face. "Come on, then," Nicky says, giving the back of Joe's neck a quick squeeze. "Let's see if Nile and Booker have killed each other yet."</p>
<p>"I certainly hope so, she needs the practice!" And privately, Joe still thinks Booker could stand to have his ass kicked a few times. He's made his peace with Booker's egregious lapse in judgment, but it can't hurt to keep him on his toes for a while. Just to ensure the lesson sticks.</p>
<p>They didn't give the others advance notice that they were arriving today -- what would be the fun in that? -- so there are a few moments of chaos when they reach the front door. Nile greets them with a shriek and practically knocks Nicky over with something between a tackle and a hug, then yells for Booker and Copley while Joe returns the favor, lifting her off her feet and giving her a twirl for good measure. He manages to kick the door shut behind them as she drags Nicky away by the hand to show off the new safehouse, laughing, and yeah, Joe concedes that this will do quite nicely.</p>
<p>Home has never been a specific <em>place</em> for him, anyway.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>You can also find me on <a href="https://kaydeefalls.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a>, if that's your thing.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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